Fairies and folk of Ireland

NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES

3 3433 07954564 0

i

4^4. .1 i

..M

■LfAM-HeNRY FROST

FAIRIES AND FOLK OF IRELAND

By the

Same

Author

FAIRIES AND

FOLK

OF IRELAND.

$1.50.

THE KNIGHTS OF

THE ROUND

TABLE. $

.50.

THE COURT

OF KING ARTHUR.

$1.50.

THE WAGNER STORY BOOK. $1.50.

THE NEW YOF;;v

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILBEN FOUNDATIONS,

FAIRIES AND FOLK
OF IRELAND

BY

WILLIAM HENRY FROST

ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY RICHMOND BURLEIGH

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1900

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR. L, NOX AND

-TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

R 19'^0. L

Copyright, 1900, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TROW DIRECTORr

PRINTING ANO BOOKBINDINQ COMPANY

NEW YORK

to

<j $<iM (Brcg (^ffcn snj. (gfi^Bef? (gffen

O

o

d

J

CONTENTS

PAGE
I. O'DONOGHUE I

II. The Big Poor People 15

III. The Little Good People . . . .43

IV. The Cleverness of Mortals . . .69
V. The Time for Nageneen's Plan . . 109

VI. Little Kathleen and Little Terence . 128

VII. A Chapter that you can Skip . . . 144

VIII. The Stars in the Water .... 177

IX. A Year and a Day 219

X. The Iron Crucifix 252

XL The Old King Comes Back . . . 279

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(( f

Is IT TIME?' THE WARRIOR SAID" . . Frotiti'spiece

PAGE

"Through the flying water I saw the old king" . i
"'Blessed days there were,' she said" . Facing 8
"They were changed into four beautiful white

swans" 15

"Will you have a light for your pipe, your

majesty?" 43

"I was sittin' there, wid a spiggot over me shoul-
der " Facing 56

"The horse was nothing but the beam of a plough " 69
"Where are you bound in that ship?" . Facing 72
" Here's the Pope's bull for that same " . Facing 102
"She knew that there were good people here" . 109
"♦Pat,' says he, 'bring me a pipe'" .... 128
"Plump down he fell through the quilt" Facing 138
"And then Donald went home" .... 144
"There's a blessing on this same sack" . Facing 164
*' There was a woman lying on a gold couch" . 177
"He forgot the psalm that he had been reading" 219
"Hold the spear straight in front of you" Facing 250
"The net was pulled away from him" . . . 252
" He says that I am never to be afraid of them " 279

'* SHOULD YOU ASK ME, WHENCE
THESE STORIES?"

The story which runs through and makes up
the bulk of this book is my own. The intention
has been, however, to make it conform to
the laws governing certain beings commonly
regarded in this country as mythical, as those laws
are revealed in the folk-lore of many peoples, and
particularly of the Irish people. Almost every
incident in which the fairies are concerned might
occur, and very many of them do actually occur,
in Irish folk-lore. But in a real folk-tale there are
usually only two or three, or, at any rate, only a
few, of the characteristic incidents, while this
story attempts to combine many of them.

The shorter stories w^herewith the main story
is interspersed are all, to the best of my informa-
tion and belief, genuine Irish folk-tales. I have
told them in my own way, of course. I have
sometimes condensed and sometimes elaborated
them, but I have seldom, if ever, I think,
materially changed their substance. I have never

xii Should You Ask Me,

had the opportunity to collect such stories as
these for myself, and if I had, I should probably
find that I had not the ability. I have therefore
had to turn for the substance of these tales to
collections made by others — men whose patient
and affectionate care and labor have preserved a
great mass of the beautiful Irish legends, which,
without them, might have died.

It seems hardly right to give to any one of these
collectors a preference over the others by naming
him first. But when I count up my indebtedness,
I find that the book to which I owe more stories
than to any other is Patrick Kennedy's " Legend-
ary Fictions of the Irish Celts." From this book
I have borrowed, as to their substance, the story
of Earl Gerald, in Chapter 11. of my own book;
the story of the children of Lir, in the same
chapter; the account of the changeling who was
tempted by the bagpipes, which Naggeneen tells
of himself, in Chapter V.; the changeling story
which Mrs. O'Brien tells, in Chapter VI.; and the
most of the story of Oisin, in Chapter IX., besides
part of the story of the fairies' tune, in Chapter
VII. With respect to Oisin I got a little help
from an article on '' The Neo-Latin Fay," by
Henry Charles Coote, in " The Folk-Lore
Record," Vol. II. The story of the fairies' tune is
in part derived from T. Crofton Croker's " Fairy

Whence These Stories? xiii

Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland."
This delightful book as well deserves the first
place in my list as does Kennedy's, for it gave
me one of my most important stories, that of
O'Donoghue, in Chapter L, and it gave me Nag-
geneen. Him I first saw, with Mr. Croker's help,
sitting on the cask of port in the cellar of
old MacCarthy of Ballinacarthy, as he himself
describes in Chapter III. It is not enough to say
that after that he came readily into my story; he
simply could not be kept out of it. The tale of
the fairies who wanted to question a priest, in
Chapter X., is also from Croker. Mrs. O'Brien's
method of getting rid of a changeling is founded
on one of Croker's stories, and a story almost
exactly like it is told by Grimm. There is also
a form of it in Brittany. Two books by W. B.
Yeats have been of much value — '' Irish Fairy
and Folk Tales " and " The Celtic Twilight." Of
the former Mr. Yeats is the editor, rather than, in
a strict sense, the author, though it contains some
of his own work, and his introduction, notes, and
other comments are of great interest. From this
book I have the story of Hudden, Dudden, and
Donald, in Chapter VII. Mr. Yeats reproduces
it from an old chap-book. A version of it is also
found in Samuel Lover's " Legends and Stories
of Ireland." Those who like to compare the

xiv Should You Ask Me,

stones which they find in various places will not
fail to note its likeness to Hans Christian Ander-
sen's " Big Claus and Little Claus." The story
of the monk and the bird, in Chapter IX., Mr.
Yeats reproduces from Croker, though not from
the work of his which has already been men-
tioned. I could not resist the temptation to
better the story, as I thought, by the addition of
an incident from a German version of it, and
everybody will remember the beautiful form in
which it appears in Longfellow's " The Golden
Legend." From Mr. Yeats's " The Celtic Twi-
light " I have the little story of the conversation
between the diver and the conger, in Chapter
II. It is a pleasure to refer to two such fine and
scholarly works as Dr. Douglas Hyde's " Beside
the Fire " and William Larminie's " West Irish
Folk-Tales and Romances." From the former of
these I have borrowed the substance of the story
of Guleesh na Guss Dhu, in Chapter IV., and
from the latter that of the ghost and his wives, in
Chapter VII.

Having thus confessed my indebtedness, it
would seem that my next duty was to pay it. I
fear that I can pay it only with thanks. I have
not taken a story from the work of any
living collector without his permission. It thus
becomes my pleasure, no less than my duty, to

Whence These Stories? xv

express my gratitude to Mr. Yeats for permission
to use the stories in '' Irish Fairy and Folk
Tales " and " The Celtic TwiHght; " to Dr. Hyde
for his permission to take what I chose from
" Beside the Fire," and to Mr. Larminie and his
publisher, Elliott Stock, for the same permission
with regard to his " West Irish Folk-Tales and
Romances." My thanks are equally due to Mac-
millan & Co., Limited, for permission to take
stories from Kennedy's '' Legendary Fictions of
the Irish Celts," the rights to which they own. I
wish to say also that in each of these cases the
permission asked has been given with a readiness
and a cordiality no less pleasing than the permis-
sion itself.

I have learned much concerning the ways of
Irish fairies from Lady Wilde's " Ancient
Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of
Ireland " and '' Ancient Cures, Charms, and
Usages of Ireland," and I have gained not a little
from the books of William Carleton, especially
his *' Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,"
but from none of these have I taken any con-
siderable part of a story. Indeed I have found
help, greater or less, in more books than I can
name here.

It may seem by this time that I am like the
lawyer who conceded this and that to his

xvi Whence These Stories f

opponent till the judge said : '' Do not concede
any more; you conceded your whole case long
ago." But I have not conceded my whole case.
I have used the threads which others have spun,
but I have done my own weaving. The shorter
stories have been told before, but they have never
been put together in this way before, and, as
I said at first, the main story is my own.

W. H. F.
New York, September i, 1900.

FAIRIES AND FOLK
OF IRELAND

O'DONOGHUE

It was in a poor little cabin somewhere in Ire-
land. It does not matter where. The walls were
of rough stone, the roof was of thatch, and the
floor was the hard earth. There was very little
furniture. Poor as it was, the whole place was
clean. It is right to tell this, because, unhappily,
a good many cabins in Ireland are not clean.
What furniture there was had been rubbed
smooth and spotless, and the few dishes that
there were fairly shone. The floor was as care-
fully swept as if the Queen were expected.

The three persons who lived in the cabin had

2 Fai7'ies and Folk of Irela7id

eaten their supper of potatoes and milk and were
sitting before the turf fire. It had been a poor
supper, yet a little of it that was left — a few pota-
toes, a little milk, and a dish of fresh water — had
been placed on a bench outside the door. There
was no light except that of the fire. There was
no need of any other, and there was no money to
spend on candles that were not needed.

The three who sat before the fire, and needed
no other light, were a young man, a young
woman, and an elderly woman. She did not like
to be called old, for she said, and quite truly,
that sixty was not old for anybody who felt
as young as she did. This woman was Mrs.
O'Brien. The young man was her son, John,
and the young woman was his wife, Kitty.

" Kitty," said John, " it's not well you're
lookin' to-night. Are ye feelin' anyways worse
than common? "

" It's only a bit tired I am," said Kitty, " wid
the work I was afther doin' all day. I'll be as
well as ever in the morning."

" It's a shame, that it is," said John, " that ye
have to be workin' that way, day afther day, and
you not sthrong at all. It's a shame that I can't
do enough for the three of us, and the more,
maybe, that there'll be, but you must be at it,
too, all the time."

" What nonsinse ye're talkin', John," Kitty

O' Donogkue 3

answered. " What would I be doin', settin' up
here like a lady, doin' nothin', and you and
mother workin' away like you was my servants?
Did you think it was a duchess or the daughter
of the Lord Lieutenant ye was marryin', that
ye're talkin' that way? "

" And it'll be worse a long time before it's
betther," John went on. " Wid the three of us
workin' all the time, we just barely get along.
And it's the end of the summer now. What we'll
do at all when the winter comes, I dunno."

The older woman listened to the others and
said nothing. Perhaps she had heard such talk
as this so many times that she did not care to
join in it again, or perhaps she was waiting to be
asked to speak. For it was to her that these
younger people always turned when they were in
trouble. It was her advice and her opinion that
they always asked when they felt that they
needed a better opinion than their own. The
three sat silent now for a time, and then John
broke out, as if the talk had been going on in his
mind all the while : '' What's the good of us
tryin' to live at all? " he said. " Is livin' any use
to us? We do nothin' but work all day, and eat a
little to give us the strength to work the next
day, and then we sleep all night, if we can sleep.
And it's that and nothing else all the year
through. Are we any better when the year

4 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

ends than we were when it began? If we've paid
the rent, we've done well. We never do more."

" John," the old woman answered, " it's not
for us to say why we're here or what for we're
living. It's God that put us here, and He'll keep
us here till it's our time to go. He has made it
the way of all His creatures to provide for them-
selves and for their own, and to keep themselves
alive while they can. When He's ready for us to
die, we die. That's all we know. The rest is with
Him."

"I know all that's true, mother," said John;
" but what is there for us to hope for, that we'ld
wish to live? It's nothing but work to keep the
roof over us. W^e don't even eat for any pleasure
that's in it — only so that wx can work. If we
rested for a day, we'ld be driven out of our house.
If we rested for another day, w^e'ld starve. Is
there any good to be hoped for such as us? Will
there ever be any good times for Ireland? I
mean for all the people in it."

'* There will," the old woman said. " Every-
thing has an end, and so these troubles of ours
will end, and all the troubles of Ireland will end,
too."

" And why should we believe that? " John
asked again. " Wasn't Ireland always the poor,
unhappy country, and all the people in it, only
the landlords and the agents, and why should we
think it will ever be better? "

O' Donoghue 5

'' Everything has an end," the old woman
repeated. " Ireland was not always the unhappy
country. It was happy once and it will be happy
again. It's not you, John O'Brien, that ought
to be forgetting the good days of Ireland, long
ago though they were. For you yourself are
the descendant of King Brian Boru, and you
know well, for it's many times I've told you, how
in his days the country was happy and peaceful
and blessed. He drove out the heathen and
saved the country for his people. He had strict
laws, and the people obeyed them. In his days
a lovely girl, dressed all in fine silk and gold and
jewels, walked alone the length of Ireland, and
there was no one to rob her or to harm her,
because of the good King and the love the
people had for him and for his laws. And you,
that are descended from King Brian, ask if Ire-
land wasn't always the poor, unhappy country."

" But all that was so long ago," said John;
'' near a thousand years, was it not? Since then
it's been nothing but sorrow for the country and
for the people. What good is it to us that the
country was happy in King Brian's time? Will
that help us pay the rent? And how we'll pay
the rent when the winter comes, I dunno, and
if we don't pay it we'll be evicted."

" Shaun," said his mother, calling him by the
Irish name that she used sometimes — '' Shaun,

6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

we'll not be evicted; never fear that. Things are
bad, and they may be worse, but take my word,
whatever comes, we'll not be evicted."

" Mother," said the young man, '' you never
spoke the word, so far as I know, that wasn't
true, but I dunno how it'll be this time. We've
been workin' all we can and we only just manage
to pay the rent and live, and here's the summer
over and the winter coming, and how will we pay
the rent then?"

The mother did not answer this question
directly. She began talking in a way that did
not seem to have anything to do with the rent,
though it really had something to do with it, in
her own mind, and perhaps in her son's mind
too.

" It's over-tired that you are with your hard
day's work, Shaun," she said, " and that and
seeing Kitty so tired, too, has maybe made you
look at things a little worse than they are. We've
never been so bad ofT as many of our neighbors;
you know that. And yet I know it's been worse
of late and harder for you than it might have
been, and you can't remember the better times
that our family had, and that's why you forget
that the times were ever better. No, you wasn't
born then, but the time was when good luck
seemed to follow your father and me everywhere
and always. Yes, and the good luck has not all

O' Donoghtte 7

left us yet, though we had the bad luck to lose
your father so long ago. We could not hope to
be rich or happy while the whole country was in
such distress as it's been sometimes, yet there
were always many that were worse off than we,
and when I think of those days of '47 and '48 it
makes the sorrows seem light that we're suffering
now. And I always know that whatever comes,
there'll be some good for me and mine while I
live. I've told you how I know that, but you
always forget, and I must tell you again."

They had not forgotten. They knew the story
that was coming by heart, but they knew that
the old woman liked to tell it, so they let her go
on and said not a word.

For a little while, too, the old woman said
not a word. She sat with her eyes closed, and
smiling, as if she were in a dream. Then she
began to speak softly, as if she were still only
just waking out of a dream. " Blessed days
there were," she said — " blessed days for
Ireland once — long ago — many hundreds of
years. O'Donoghue — it was he was the good
King, and happy were his people. A fierce
warrior he was to guard them from their enemies,
and a just ruler to those who minded his laws.
It was in the West that he ruled, by the beautiful
Lakes of Killarney. The rich and the poor
among his people were alike in one thing — they

8 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

all had justice. He punished even his own son
when he d^d wrong, as if he had been a poor man
and a stranger.

*' He gave grand feasts to his friends, and the
greatest and the best men of all Erin came to sit
at his table and to hear the wise words that he
spoke. And the greatest bards of all Erin came
to sing before him and his guests of the brave
deeds of the heroes of old days and of the great-
ness and the goodness of O'Donoghue himself.
At one of these feasts, after a bard had been
singing of the noble days of Erin long ago,
O'Donoghue began to speak of the years that
were to come for Ireland. He told of much good
and of much evil. He told how true and brave
and noble men would live and work and fight and
die for their country, and how cowards -would
betray her. He told of glory and he told of
shame. He spoke of riches and honor, and
poetry and beauty; he spoke of want and dis-
grace, and degradation and sorrow.

'' Those who sat at his table listened to him
in wonder. Sometimes their hearts swelled with
pride at the noble lives and deeds of those who
were to come after them, sometimes they wept
at the sufferings that their children were to feel,
and sometimes they hid their faces from each
other in shame at the tales of cowardice and of
treachery.

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AMO'
TILOEN F0UNr>>»T1OWS.

O 'Donoghue g

" As he finished speaking he rose from the
table, crossed the hall, and walked out at the
door and down to the shore of the lake. The
others followed him and watched him, full of
wonder. They saw him go to the edge of the
lake and then walk out upon it, as if the water
had been firm ground under his feet. He walked
far and far out on the bright lake as they stood
and gazed at him. Then he turned toward them,
he waved his hand in farewell, and he was gone.
They saw him no more."

The old woman paused for a moment and the
dreaming look came back to her face. Then
she went on. " They saw rhim no more — but
others saw him — and I have seen him. Every
year, on the ist of May, just as the sun is rising,
he rides across the lake on his beautiful white
horse. He is not always seen, but sometimes a
few can see him. And it always brings good
luck to see O'Donoghue riding across the lake
on May morning. And I saw him."

Again there was a pause, but she had no look
of dreaming now. Her eyes w^ere open and she
seemed to be looking at something wonderful
and beautiful that was far off. Slowly and softly
she began speaking again. " I was a girl then.
My father lived by the Lakes of Killarney. On
that May morning I was standing at the door
as the sun was rising. I was looking out upon

lo Fairies and Folk of Irela^id

the lake, far away to the east. The first that I saw
was that the water, far off toward the sun, was
ruffled, and then all at once a great, white-
crested wave rose, as if a strong wind had struck
the water, only all the air was still, and no wind
ever raises such a wave as that on the lake. The
wave came swiftly toward me, and I drew back,
in a kind of dread, though I knew that it could
not reach me where I stood. But still I looked —
and then I saw him.

** Through the flying water and foam and mist
I saw the old King, on his white horse, following
the great wave across the lake. The sun made
all his armor gleam like the silver of the lake itself,
and the plume of his helmet streamed away
behind him like the spray that a strong wind
blows back from the crest of a breaker. After
him came a train of glowing, beautiful forms —
spirits of the lake or of the air, or some of the
Good People — I do not know. They wore soft,
flowing garments, that were like the morning
mists; they carried chains of pearls and they
scattered other pearls about them, that glistened
like the drops of a shower when the sun is shining
through it. They had garlands of flowers, and
they plucked the flowers out and threw them
high in the air, so that they fell before the King.
They looked like flecks of foam from the waves,
turned rosy and violet by the rising sun, but

O ' Donoghue 1 1

they were flowers. And there was a sound of
sweet, soft music, Hke harps and mellow horns.

" The King and his train came nearer and I
saw them plainer, and the music sounded louder.
Then they passed me and moved far away again
on the lake. The sight of them grew dim and
the music grew faint, and I strained my eyes and
my ears for the last of them, and they were gone.
Then I could move and speak and breathe again,
for it had seemed to me that I could not do any
one of these things while the King was passing,
and I knew that I had seen O'Donoghue."

The old woman stopped, as if the story were
ended, but the younger people did not speak, for
they knew that she had something else to tell.
'' O'Donoghue had passed and v/as gone," she
said, '' but he always leaves good luck behind
him, and he left the good luck with me. That
summer some rich young ladies came from
Dublin to see the Lakes of Killarney. They heard
the story of O'Donoghue, and the people told
them that I was the last who had seen him. They
came to my father's house and asked me to tell
them what I had seen. They seemed pleased
with what I told them, or with something that
they saw in me, and they asked my father to let
them take me back to the city with them, for
a lady's maid. He did not like to let me go, but
they said that they would pay me well and would

1 2 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

have me taught better than I could be at home.
He was poor, there were others at home who
needed all that he could earn, I wished to go, and
at last he said I might.

" So I went to Dublin and lived in a grand
house, among grand people. I tried to do my
duties well, and they were kind to me. They kept
the promise that they had made to my father.
They gave me books and allowed me time to
study them, and they helped me in things that I
could not well have learned by myself, even with
the books. I was quick at study, and in the little
time that I had, I learned all that I could. Three
times they took me to London with them, and
I saw still grander people and grander life.

" Those were happy days, but happier came.
Your father came, Shaun. He w^as a servant of
the family, like myself — a coachman. But he
was wiser than I, and he talked w4th me and
showed me that there was something better for
us than to be servants always. We saved all the
money that we could, and when we had enough
we came here, where your father had lived before,
and took a Httle farm. The luck of O'Donoghue
was always with us. We had a good landlord,
who asked a fair rent. We both worked hard,
we saved more money and took more land, and
all our neighbors thought that we were pros-
perous, and so we were.

O 'Donoghue 1 3

'' Then came '47. Nobody could be pros-
perous then. Nobody that had a heart in him at
all could even keep what he had saved then.
What we had and what our neighbors had
belonged to all, and little enough there was of it.
It is well for you young people to talk of these
times being hard. Harder than some they may
be, but good and easy compared with those days
of '47 and '48. You talk of injustice and wrong
to Ireland ! What think you of those times, when
every day great ships sailed away from Ireland
loaded down with food — corn and bacon, and
beef and butter — and Ireland's own people left
without the bit of food to keep the life in them?
All summer long was the horrible wet weather,
and the potatoes rotting in the ground before
they'ld be ripe, and never fit to eat. To add to
all that was the fever, that killed its thousands,
and then the cold. And when the days came
again that the crops would grow, many and many
of the people were so weak with the hunger and
the sickness that they could not work in the
fields. Ah ! and you call these hard times !

*' Those were the bad days for Ireland, those
days of '47. Not even the luck of O'Donoghue
could make us prosper or give us comforts then.
But we lived through the time, as many others
did. The poor helped those who were poorer
than themselves; the sick tended those who were

14 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

sicker; the cold gave clothes and fire to those who
were colder. The little money that we had saved
helped us and some of our neighbors. And we
lived through it all.

" Better times came, though never again so
good as the old. We worked again and we saved
a trifle. Then you were born to us, John. We
had a worse landlord now. He was of the kind
that cared nothing for his tenants and nothing
for his land, but to get the last penny ofif it. The
rent was raised, and we never could have paid it
but for the care and the skill and the hard work
of your father. And then, John, you know that
when you were hardly old enough to take his
place with the work, let alone knowing how to
work as well as he, he died and left us — Heaven
rest his soul ! "

For a long time the old woman said no more,
and neither of the others spoke. Then she said :
" John, the country is in trouble enough and the
times are hard enough for you and for Kitty,
here, and for all of us, I know. But don't be cast
down. There have been worse days than these;
there have been better days, too, and there will
be better again."

II

THE BIG POOR PEOPLE

There was a knock at the door, and John
opened it. " God save all here except the cat ! "
said a voice outside.

'' God save you kindly ! " John answered.

A young man and a young woman came in.
They were neighbors — Peter Sullivan and his
wife, Ellen. " Good avenin' to you, Pether,"
said John; "you're lookin' fine and hearty, and
it's Hke a rose you're lookin', Ellen."

" It's more like nettles than roses we're
feelin', " Ellen answered, " but something with
prickles anyway, wid the bother we have every
day and all day."

*' Thrue for you, it's hard times," said John;
" we was speaking about them just the minute
before you came in; but we all have to bear them.
It's not you ought to complain, as long as
you've good health; now here's Kitty — I dunno

how "

15

1 6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" It's not the hard times I'm speakin' of now,"
said Ellen; '' they're bad enough, goodness
knows; but it's the bother we have all the time,
and we can't tell how or why. Half the time the
cow gives no milk, and when she does, you can
make no butther wid it. The pig, the crathur,
won't get fat; he ates everything he can reach,
and still he looks Hke a basket wid a skin over it.
The smoke of the fire comes down the chimney,
the dishes are thrown on the floor, wid nobody
near them, and such noises are goin' on all night
long that never a wink of sleep can a body get.
What we'll do at all if it goes on, I dunno."

" By all the books that ever was opened and
shut," Peter added, " it's all thrue what she says,
and more. What wid all that and what wid the
throubles that's on the whole counthry, if I only
had the money saved to do it. Fid lave it all
to-morrow and go to the States — I would so."

" Leave off the things you do that make you all
these troubles," said the older Mrs. O'Brien,
*' and you'll have no more need to go to the
States than others."

"What things are them that we do?" Ellen
asked.

" Haven't I told you before this," said Mrs.
O'Brien, " that it's the Good People that trouble
you? If you'ld treat them well, as we do, they'ld
never bother you. If you'ld even take good care

The Big Poor People ij

never to harm them, it's Hkely they'ld never come
near you."

" It's the fairies you're speakin' of," said Peter.
" Sure I don't beUeve in them at all. It's old
woman's nonsense that your head's full of, savin'
your presence, Mrs. O'Brien. There's no fairies
at all. Don't talk to me."

" You'ld better be more respectful to them,
Peter," Mrs. O'Brien answered. " Say less about
not believing in them and don't call them by that
name, that they don't Hke. Call them ' the Good
People ' or ' the gentry.' They don't like the
name that you called them, any more than they
like those who disbelieve in them or those who
try to know too much about them. Speak well
about them and treat them well, as we do, and
they'll not trouble you; maybe they'll even help
you. Didn't you see, as you came in, how we left
something for them to eat and drink outside the
door there? We've not much, but they like fresh
milk and clean water, and we always give them
these, and they hold nothing but friendliness for
us. Look and see now if they've taken what we
left there for them after supper."

Peter went to the door and looked. " There's
nothing in the dishes there," he said; " but how
do we know it wasn't the pig that ate it, or some
poor dog, maybe? "

" You don't know," said Mrs. O'Brien, " only

l8 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

as I tell you, and you'ld better be attending to
them that know more than yourself. If you did
chance to give a meal to some poor dog, instead
of to the Good People, there'ld be no great harm
done, but it's the Good People that get what we
put there. We always leave it for them and they
always come and take it, and it's that makes them
friendly, and so they would be to you, if you did
the same. But you do nothing for them, because
you say you don't believe in them, and you do
worse than nothing. Didn't I see Ellen the other
evening throwing out some dirty water and never
saying ' Take care of the water? ' "

" And what if I did? " said Ellen. '' Can't I
throw out wather when I plase, widout talkin'
about it?"

'' You can if you like," said the old woman,
'' but when you throw out water without warn-
ing, it's as likely as not some of the Good People
may be passing, and they don't like dirty water
to be thrown on them ; and so after that your cow
gives no milk, your pig is thin, and your dishes
are thrown around the room. Do as you like
with your water, or with anything else, but if
you anger the Good People, be sure they'll do
you harm."

" It's superstitious you are, Mrs. O'Brien,"
said Peter; " I dunno what it is that's throubling
us, but there's no fairies at all."

The Big Poor People 19

'' Superstitious, is it? " said the old woman.
'* And so you're not superstitious at all, and you
don't believe in the Good People ! Now tell me,
Peter Sullivan, when you came to that door just
now and said ' God save all here,' like a decent
man, why did you add ' except the cat? ' What
did you mean by those words ^ except the cat? '
Tell me that now."

'' Why, sure, Mrs. O'Brien," Peter answered,
just a bit confused, " sure, we're told that cats is
avil spirits, so we mustn't put blessings on them,
and when we say ' God save all here,' we add onto
it ' except the cat,' so as not to be calling down a
blessing on an avil spirit."

" Ah! " said Mrs. O'Brien, '' it's not the likes
of you that's superstitious. You can't put a bless-
ing on the poor cat, when you're blessing
everybody and everything else in the house, for
fear you'ld be putting it on an evil spirit; but
you're not superstitious, and so you throw dirty
water on the Good People as they're passing, and
you call them by names that they don't like, and
then you wonder what it is that's troubling you."

"No, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter, again, "I
dunno what it is at all. It may be the avil spirits
themselves, for what I know, and whatever it is,
rid go away and leave it and leave the country,
if I had the money to get to the States. I heard
once of a man that was druv out of the counthry

20 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

by a monsther that I suppose was maybe some-
thing like the fairies — Hke them in making
trouble for the man, anyway. It was a great
conger that lived in a hole in the Sligo River,
and I suppose he was ten yards long, and the
man was a diver. He was gettin' stones out of
the bottom of the river, and the conger says
to him, 'What are you afther there?' says he.
' Stones, sor,' says the diver. ' Hadn't you
betther be goin? ' says the conger. ' I think so,
sor,' says the diver, and afther that he never
stopped goin' till he got to the States."

"That's you, Peter," said the old woman;
" you don't believe in the Good People or strange
monsters or anything of the sort, but you want
to run away from them."

If Peter had been quite honest about it, he
could scarcely have said, even to himself, whether
he believed that there were any fairies or not;
but he was really afraid of them, though he put
on such a bold front and said that he did not
believe in them, to make people think that he
was uncommonly knowing. " Mrs. O'Brien," he
said, '' do you think it's true, what they say, that
in the States you can pick up goold everywhere
in the streets? "

" What good would it do you if it was true? "
she asked.

" What good would it do me? Are ye askin'

The Big Poor People 2r

what good would goold do me? Sure, then,
wouldn't I pick up all of it I could carry, and
wouldn't I take land wid it and pay rent and buy
stock for a big farm and grow as rich as Damer?
What good would goold be? Ha! Ha! What
couldn't you do in a country where ye could be
pickin' up goold in the street? "

" There's no gold to be picked up in the streets
there, any more than here," said the old woman,
" and if there was, it w^ould be no use to you.
Only suppose, now, that you had picked up all
the gold you could carry, and that you wanted to
buy a loaf of bread with it. And suppose you
went into a baker's shop and chose even the
smallest loaf of bread you could find, and threw
down a whole gold sovereign for it — aye, or a
hundred gold sovereigns. Would the baker sell
you the bread for your gold, do you think?
Wouldn't he say to you : ' Go on out of this, for
the silly Irishman that you are ! What for would
I be giving you good bread for that gold of
yours, when I can pick up as much and as good
as that any minute here before my own door
and keep my bread as well? ' If you could find
gold in the street, it would be worth no more
than the stones that you find there."

" I don't know how that is, Mrs. O'Brien,"
said Peter, '' but I can't see why goold wouldn't
be goold, wherever you could find it."

22 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" It's not sensible," said John, '' to be talkin'
of findin' gold in the streets, but there's a deal in
what Peter says, for all that, and it's often I've
thought, too, that Fid go to the States and be
away from all these throubles, if only we could
save up the money to take us all there. It's not
any gold or any riches I'm thinkin' about, but
what I want to know, mother, is this: Could a
man in the States, if he was strong and if he
worked hard — and if he didn't drink a great
deal — could he make enough to keep himself and
his wife both, so that she needn't work too hard —
not so that she would sit idle, I don't mean, but
so that she needn't be doin' hard work and doin'
it all the time — could he do that? "

" That's the sensible and the honest talk," said
his mother; " he could do that. Those that do
nothing get nothing, in the States the same as
anywhere else. But I've talked with them that
know, and they tell me that in the States those
that will work are paid for their work, and those
that are strong and industrious and honest can
keep their families from want, and that's more
than some can do here, God help them ! "

" It would be a great thing," said John,
speaking slowly, as if he were trying to make
himself believe this dream of a land where a man's
work could make his wife and his children sure of
a home and food — '' a great thing. And do you

TJie Big Poor People 23

think, mother — but no, no — I suppose not — do
you think, if we was once there — do you think
that I could work enough to make it so that it
would be easier for you and for Kitty both?
Could one do enough for three? "

'' It would be easier than here, maybe," was
all that the old woman said in answer to this.
She had heard this talk of America many times
before, and she did not like it. She would rather
believe, and make others believe, that better
times were coming for Ireland. She was not so
young as the others and not so ready to leave her
old home, yet lately she had seen how it was
growing harder and harder to stay, and there
seemed to be little left of the good luck of which
she boasted.

She was thinking of all this now, and John
knew her thoughts, though she did not speak
them, and he said : " You always tell us that
there's betther times comin', mother, and I've
learned to know that all you say is true. She was
sayin' it just before you came in, Pether. But
how can we believe in the betther times? They
don't come. They get worse and worse. How
do we know they'll ever come? "

Again Mrs. O'Brien seemed lost in deep
thought, or in a dream, just as when, a little while
before, she had told them of O'Donoghue. What
she told them now was a sort of answer to John's

24 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

question, but perhaps she told it quite as much
to draw their thoughts away from America. She
was silent for a little while, and they all waited
for her to speak.

*' Good times for Ireland there will be again,"
she said, '' when Earl Gerald comes back. It was
hundreds of years ago that Earl Gerald lived in
his great castle of Mullaghmast. He was a strong
warrior and he fought many a good fight for his
people against their foes. More than that, he
was powerful in magic. He could work mighty
charms and he could change himself into any
form he liked.

" His wife knew that he could do this, but he
had never shown himself to her in any form but
his own. She often begged him to let her see
what his magic could do, and to change himself
to some other form for her. But he knew there
was danger in it, and he put her ofif with one
reason and another. But at last, she asked him so
many times, he told her that if she took any fright
at all while he was in any form but his own he
could never live in the world again in his own
form till all the people of the country had passed
away many times. ' I'ld not be a fit wife for
you,' she said, ' if I'ld be easily frightened.'

" * You might not be easily frightened,' he said,
* but you might have great cause, and if you were
only a little frightened you would never see me
like myself again.'

The Big Poor People 25

'' Then one day, as they were sitting together,
the Earl turned away his head and muttered some
words which his wife could not understand, and
that instant he was gone, and instead of him sit-
ting beside her she saw a little goldfinch flying
around the room. The goldfinch flew out at the
window into the garden; then it flew back and
sat on the lady's shoulder and on her hand and
on her head, and it sang to her, and so they
played together for a time. Then it flew out into
the open air once more, but in a second it darted
back through the window and straight into the
lady's bosom. The next instant she saw a wild
hawk, that was chasing the little bird and was
coming straight through the window after it.
She put both her hands over her bosom, to save
her husband's life, but she was frightened and
she gave one scream as the hawk darted into the
room, dashed itself against a table, and was killed.
Then she looked where the little bird had been,
and it was gone. She never saw Earl Gerald
again.

'* But Earl Gerald was not dead, and he is not
dead, though all this was hundreds of years ago.
He is sleeping, down under the ground, just
beneath where his old castle used to stand. His
warriors are there with him. They are in a great
hall. The Earl sits at the head of a long table
and the men sit down the sides. All rest their

26 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

heads upon the table and all are asleep. Against
the wall there are rows of stalls, and behind each
man, in one of the stalls, is his horse.

" Once in every seven years Earl Gerald wakes
at night. He rises and mounts his horse. A
door of the hall opens. He rides out into the free
air. He rides around the Curragh of Kildare and
then back into the cave, to sleep again for seven
years.

" While he is out the door is open. Once, long
ago, a horse-dealer was going home late, and he
had been drinking a little. He saw the door in
the hill open and he walked in. And there he
found himself in a hall, dim and high. A row of
dim lamps hung along the hall, and he saw the
smoke of them rise up to the roof, where many
old banners, faded and torn, stirred a little in the
light breeze that came in by the open door. And
the light of the lamps shone down and glistened
on the bright armor of rows of men who sat with
their steel helmets bowed upon the table, and
behind them were rows of horses, with their
saddles and their bridles on, ready for their riders.

" There was no sound in the cave but the
shuffle of his own foot, and the stillness and the
sight that he saw made him afraid. His hand
trembled, and a bridle that he had fell upon the
floor. The noise echoed and echoed through the
cave, and the warrior who sat nearest to the poor

The Big Poor People 2J

man raised his head. ' Is it time? ' the warrior
said.

" ' Not yet, but soon will be/ the man
answered, and the warrior's head sank again upon
the table. The man went out of the cave as
quickly as he could, and he never could find the
door of it again.

" They say that Earl Gerald's horse has silver
shoes. They were half an inch thick when the
Earl's sleep began. When they are worn as thin
as a cat's ear it will be time. Then a miller's
son, who will have six fingers on each hand, will
blow a trumpet, and Earl Gerald and all his war-
riors will come out of the cave. They will fight
a great battle and will conquer the enemies of
Ireland. Then the country will be peaceful and
prosperous and happy, and Gerald will be its
King for forty years."

Peter's mind could not be set at rest by any
such stories as this to-night. *' What's the good
of all thim old tales to us? " he asked. " Can we
pay our rint wid the knowledge that Earl Gerald
will be King of Ireland for forty years? They do
be all the time fortellin' and prophesyin' and pre.
dictin' this thing and that thing and the other
thing in thim old tales, and nothin' ever
comes o' thim. Did you ever know, now, Mrs.
O'Brien^ — I ask you — will you tell me this — did
ye ever know of any of the prophecies in any of
thim old woman's tales comin* thrue? '*

28 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" It's surprised I am/' said the old woman, " to
hear you, Peter Sullivan, talking that way — you,
that had a decent man for your father, and that's
a decent man yourself, all but knowing nothing —
you, that have heard the stories of your people.
Tell me now, did you ever hear what was foretold
of the children of Lir, and did you ever hear if it
came true or not? "

Perhaps Peter had never heard about the
children of Lir, or perhaps he had heard and did
not like to say so, because the story would be
proof that a prophecy had come true. At any
rate, he said nothing. But the old woman
seemed resolved that if he had never heard about
the children of Lir he should hear about them
now.

" Lir was a powerful man in the old days of
Ireland," she said. " He had three sons and one
daughter, and their mother was dead. The
names of the sons were Hugh, Fiachra, and
Conn, and the name of the daughter was Fair-
shoulder, and beautiful and good children were
they all. Lir was visiting once at the castle of
Bogha Derg, the King of Conacht, and he saw
the daughter of the King, and he fell in love
with her and married her.

" For a time they were happy, and then the
new wife began to be jealous of the love of her
husband for his four children. It troubled her

The Big Poor People 29

so much that she began to lose her beauty and
her health, and at last she took to her bed and
did not leave it for a year. And after that time
there came a great Druid to visit her. You know
who and what the Druids were, I think. They
were the priests of the old religion of Ireland,
before St. Patrick came and made the people
Christians. They were powerful in magic; they
could bring storms and could drive them away;
they could foretell the future; they could work
powerful enchantments on people and beasts,
and trees and stones, and they could do many
other marvellous things.

'' This Druid talked with the wife of Lir for a
long time alone. He made her tell him all that
troubled her, and then he told her what she could
do to be rid of her husband's children. He gave
her a magic wand and went on his way.

" Then she rose from her bed and took the
four children with her in her chariot and set out
for her father's castle. On the way she ordered
the driver of the chariot to kill the children, but
he refused. Then they passed near a lake, and the
step-mother told the children to go into the water
and bathe. But Fair-shoulder believed that she
meant them some harm, and she refused to go,
and begged her brothers not to go. So the
step-mother called her men, and she and they
forced the children out of the chariot and pushed

30 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

them into the water. Then she touched each of
them on the head with the Druid's wand, and
they were changed into four beautiful white
swans.

" After she had done that, she went on to her
father's castle. When her father had welcomed
her, he said, ' Where are your husband's
children? '

" ' They are at home,' she answered, ' in their
father's castle.'

*' 'And are they well?'

" ' They are well.'

" Now the King himself was a Druid, and
more powerful than the one who had given his
daughter the wand. More than that, he was a
good man, and the other was a wicked one. He
did not believe what his daughter told him about
the children, and so he put her into a magic
sleep. When she was asleep he said to her,
^ W^here are your husband's children?'

'' And she answered, ' They are in the lake
which we passed by the way as we came here.'

'' ' And what did you do to them? '

" ' I changed them into white swans.'

"'Why did you do that?'

Because my husband loved them more than
he loved me.'

" He woke her out of the magic sleep and
called all his people together. Before them all

The Big Poor People 31

he told her that she should be punished for her
wickedness, and then he changed her, by his
Druidic power, into a gray vulture. Then he said
to the people : ' This creature that was my
daughter has laid a wicked enchantment on her
husband's children. She has changed them into
swans. They must keep that shape for many
hundreds of years; they must swim in the lakes
and the seas and fly over the land, and they must
travel far and must suffer much. But there is a
hope for them. !Many, many hundred years will
pass away — so many that even the Druid's eye
can scarcely see what is at the end of them. But
at last there shall come strange men across the
sea to Erin — men with shaven heads. They shall
build houses and shall set up tables in the east
ends of their houses, and they shall ring bells.
And when the swans that were the children of
Lir shall hear the first sound of these bells, they
shall have their human shape again, and then
they shall be happy forever. But she — the gray
vulture — she shall fiy in the sky, where it is
stormy and cold. Where there are thick clouds
and where the rain is made, there shall be her
home. She shall not fly where the heaven is blue
and where the sun shines warm. The bells of the
good men from over the sea shall bring her no
peace. Her way shall be with the wind and the
hail. If she has any rest it shall be on the peak

32 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

of some wet crag, where the snow whirls around
her, or the fog drives past her, or the sleet cuts
against her, or the cold spray of the sea dashes
over her. And it shall be so with her till the
Day of Doom.'

'' When the King had finished speaking the
gray vulture flew away, and she was never seen
again. But the King and all the court rode in
chariots to the lake where the white swans were,
and Lir and all his people came there, too, when
they heard what had been done. And there they
all stood and Hstened to the singing of the four
swans. So beautiful was the song that those who
listened could think of nothing else while they
heard it. They left their horses and their chariots
and stood on the shore of the lake and listened to
the enchanting music, and never thought of
food, or of drink, or of sleep. Even the horses
listened to the song as the people did. Day and
night they stood there, and many days and
nights, and no hunger came upon them, and they
felt no cold and no heat, and no w^ind and no
wet.

" But the time came when the enchantment
that was upon them compelled the four white
sw^ans to leave the place. They rose up into the
air and flew away and out of sight into the sky.
Then the King and his people, and Lir and his
people, w^ent back to their castles, and they
never saw the four white swans again.

The Big Poor People 33

'' The four white swans flew to Loch Derg, and
there for many years they swam on the lake, and
fed and slept among the rushes along the shores.
In the summer the lake w^as pleasant and cool,
the air was clear and mild, the sky was blue, and
the sun was bright and beautiful. Then Fair-
shoulder and her brothers forgot that they were
unhappy. They sang songs to one another and
scarcely remembered that they had ever been
anything but swans, swimming on this peaceful
water. But when the winter came and the ice
was all around, and the wind from the north blew
the snow against them, so that it froze among
their feathers and they could scarcely move, they
were so stiff and so cold — then they remembered
how happy they had been in their father's castle.
They could not sing now — not even sad songs.
They only longed to have their human shape
again and to be back in their old home.

" But after many, many years more had passed
they ceased to wish for home. They had been
swans so long now that it did not seem to them
that they had ever been anything else. When
the winter came again and again and again, and
the days of chilling storm and the nights of
freezing darkness w^ere upon them, the poor
brothers longed for nothing but the end of it all.
The thought of the old castle hall, with its bright
fires and its feasts and its music of minstrels,

34 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

and its dances and its games, was only another
pain to them, and they wished only to die and
to leave their sorrows.

" Then they crowded close together, to be as
warm as they could, and Fair-shoulder tried to
spread her wings over her brothers, to keep the
storm from them. She tried to comfort them,
and she told them again and again the story that
she had heard from the people who stood by the
lake to hear them sing, the story that the King
had told, that, after many hundreds of years,
strange men should come across the sea to
Erin — men with shaven heads; that they should
build houses and set up tables in the east ends of
their houses, and that they should ring bells; and
when the swans should hear the first sound of
those bells they should have their human shape
again, and then they should be happy forever.

^* For three hundred years they were at Loch
Derg, and then, by the power of their enchant-
ment, they were compelled to leave it. They flew
to the sea of Moyle, and there they stayed,
through the summer's heat and the winter's cold,
for three hundred years more. Still the sister
told her brothers of the strange men who were
to come to Erin and of the bells that were to
free them. But they could not be comforted.
The strange men were too long in coming.

" When the three hundred years were past

The Big Poor People 35

they had to fly away again to another sea. As
they flew, they passed over the spot where their
father's castle had stood and where they had
been happy children together. Not a stone of
the beautiful castle could they see. It had all
crumbled down, and the grass had grown over it
for many a year. They saw the fox that had its
hole where their father's bright hearth fire had
been, and they saw the ditch of dirty water where
their father used to welcome kings and bards and
wise men at his gate. They kept their way
through the air and saw no more; yet they had
seen all that there was to see. It gave the poor
swans only a little ache at the heart, for they
were past hope now. They had suffered too
much to believe anything or to think of anything
but the suffering that was past and the more
suffering that was to come.

" The end of their journey came and they swam
in a new sea. Again the sister tried to cheer
her brothers, but they could not be cheered.
The strange men with the shaven heads would
never come, they thought. They had waited for
them too long.

" But the hundreds of years that had passed
had done more than to bring sorrow to the poor
swans. In lands far away a new faith had grown
up, not like the Druids' faith. And at last across
the sea to Erin came the holy St. Patrick. He

36 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

brought monks with him, and they had shaven
heads. They went about the island and
preached, and built chapels. In the east end of
each chapel they set up an altar, and they said
masses and rang bells. And they built a chapel
on the island that has since been called the Isle
of Glory.

'' And so, one bright morning, Fair-shoulder
and her brothers were swimming near the Isle of
Glory, when, of a sudden, there came to them
from the shore the sweet sound of a bell. Then
Fair-shoulder called to her brothers, and they all
swam to the shore. And as soon as they were on
shore their form of swans was gone. Fair-
shoulder was a beautiful young girl again, and
the brothers were strong, beautiful boys. They
walked up to the little chapel together, and
there a monk baptized them.

'* And as soon as they were baptized they were
young and strong no longer. Fair-shoulder was
an old, old woman, and her brothers were old,
old men. They were so weak with the age of a
thousand years that they fell upon the floor of
the chapel. The monks took them up and cared
for them for a few days, and then they died. And
so the word of the Druid came to pass, that when
the strange men should ring their bells the
children of Lir should be swans no longer, and
should be happy forever."

The Big Poor People y]

They all waited for a few minutes, to be sure
that there was no more of the story, and then John
said : '' Mother, it's easy for you to be tellin' us
them tales, and they may be all thrue enough,
and I'm not sayin' they're not. But what good
are they to us? The word of the Druid came
thrue, but how long was it in comin' thrue? A
thousand years? "

" A thousand years or more," said his mother;
" but the stories can teach us to be patient, if they
can do nothing else."

" They may do that," said John; " the blessed
Lord He knows you've been patient, and He
knows the rest of us have tried to be. But what
does it all come to? We can't wait a thousand
years for the betther times. Pether, here, is
right. The States would be a betther place for
all of us. If we had the money I'ld say that we
ought to go there."

" It's not the bad times alone that's in it," said
Peter. " As I told you before, I could stand
them. It's the bother that we're put to all the
time. It's that would make us go to the States
this minute, if we had the chance. But I suppose
your mother could never be leavin' Ireland now,
John; she's gettin' so old now, maybe she
couldn't stand the journey."

" Have no fear about that," John answered;
" mother's not so old as you'ld make out, and

38 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

she's likely to live longer now than some others
that's here this minute."

As he said this John felt Kitty's hand suddenly
holding his closer, and he knew that he ought not
to have said it. " Don't mind what I'm sayin',"
he said to her in a whisper; " I dunno what I'm
talkin' about, but I didn't mean you at all, darlin',
nor anybody particular. It'll all come right
somehow, and we'll soon see the roses back in
your cheek, and the smile on your lips, and the
light in your eyes. Don't mind what I said."

'' But what's the use talkin' of it at all? " said
Peter. " You've no money and we've less. We
might as well be talkin' of goin' to the moon as
to the States."

The old woman did not seem to be paying any
attention to what the others were saying, and
now nobody at all said anything for a little while.
Then Mrs. O'Brien began : '' John and Kitty, I
think sometimes it's true I'm getting old and
foolish. I don't know what has made me talk the
way I have to-night. I've seen it coming — oh,
I've seen it coming all along — yes, longer than
any one of you has seen it — and I knew I couldn't
stand in the way. And yet to be leaving the old
places — the old fields and hills and paths — the old
streams and trees and rocks — the old places
where your father and I walked and sat and
talked so often together, where you were born

The Big Poor People 39

and where he Hes — I couldn't bear to think of it.
It's old and weak and foolish I'm getting, and
I couldn't bear to think of it. And so I've tried
to make you think of other things and to make
you think that it would be better somehow, some
time. Maybe I've said too much, and maybe I've
kept you from going when you ought to have
gone, but you'll know that it was because I
couldn't bear to think of leaving all the dear
places, and you'll forgive me; John and Kitty,
you'll forgive me. I can say no more. If I
couldn't think of it, yet I must do it. It is right
that we should go, and we will go."

" And why should you be talkin' that way,
mother? " said John. '' Was it what you said
that kept us from goin' to the States long ago?
Sure, if you had said nothing at all, we hadn't
the money to go, and so what difference was it
what you said? "

'' Listen to me, John," said his mother; '*' it
was all through me that you didn't leave this land
of sorrow long ago. It was because it had been a
land of joy as well to me that we all stayed here;
and now, since you're sure that it's right and best
for you to go, it's not the want of money that
shall stand in your way. It's yourself knows,
John, that your father — Heaven be his bed! —
was always the careful and the saving man, and
I always tried to help him the best I could. The

40 Fairies and Folk of Irelajid

times got a little better with us, as you know,
after those worst ones in '47 and '48, and we
saved a little again — it was not much, but it was
something. Your father left it with me before
he died, and he said : ' Keep it always by you till
you need it most. Don't use it till the time
comes when you can say, " I shall never need
this money more than I need it now." ' So I have
always kept it, and I have it now. That was why
I told you not to fear about the winter. It would
have paid our rent if all else had failed, and it
would have taken us all through the winter. But
it's better that it should take us to the States. If
we stayed here and used the money, we'ld be
as bad off in another year. Kitty will be getting
strong again there, and it'll be better for all of us.
The time that your father said has come; I'm
sure we'll never be needing the money that he
left more than we're needing it now. There's no
more to be said; we'll go."

For a little while no more was said. John and
Kitty gazed at the old woman in wonder. The
thing that they had thought about for so long,
and wished for as a happiness that could never
be, was come to them. And now it scarcely
seemed a happiness; it was half a sorrow. Then
Ellen spoke : " Oh, Mrs. O'Brien, it was always
you was the good neighbor to us ! It was always
you was with us in joy and in sorrow! What'll

The Big Poor People 41

we ever do at all when you're gone and we're left
here alone, with none to be so kind to us as
you've always been? "

And Peter said : '' I was thinkin' that same.
The Lord go wid you and keep you, wherever
you go, but it'll be the sad day for us when you
go away."

" Peter and Ellen," said the old woman, " how
could you think that w^e'ld do a thing like that?
You may be a fool sometimes, Peter, but you're
your father's son. Do you know what your father
did for us, Peter? When my John was dying
with the fever, he sat and watched with him, and
brought him the water and the whey all night,
and night after night, when I was so worn out
that I could watch no longer. He might have
taken the fever himself, and he might have died
with it, and he did take it, but the Lord spared
his life for a while after that, Heaven rest his soul !
And another thing that John said to me before he
died was this : ' As long as you have a bit to eat
or a drop to drink or a penny to buy, never let
Tom Sullivan or any of his want more than you
want yourself.'

'' And so, Peter and Ellen, when we go to the
States, you'll both go too. There's enough of the
money to take us all there. If you're ever able to
pay it back, you can do it, if you like; but if not,
we'll never ask you for it. If we went away from

42 Faii'ies and Folk of Irelajid

here without you, my husband would look down
from Heaven and see me doing what he told me,
with his dying breath, never to do. He would
come to me at night and he would say : ' Mary,
you are deserting in their sorrow the children of
them that never deserted us in our sorrow.' Do
you think that I could bear that? Do you think
that I would do that? "

Now I have told you all the talk that went on
in the O'Briens' house that night. Perhaps you
think that I have been a good while in doing it.
If you will forgive me, I will try to get on with the
story a little faster after this. Only one word
more about this talk : you must not think that this
was the first time that these five people had ever
gone over and over this subject of America, or
'' the States," as they called it. They had talked
of it many times, but Mrs. O'Brien had never
given the word that they should go. The rest of
them talked on and on of what they wished. But
when she spoke, they all knew that she spoke of
what was to be. They knew now that they
should never talk of going again, but they
should go.

Ill

THE LITTLE GOOD PEOPLE

There was a good deal of commotion that
night in the rath near where the O'Briens and the
Sullivans lived. Do you know what a rath is? I
suppose not. It is hard work to tell stories to
you, you are so ignorant. I will tell you what a
rath is. First I will tell you what it looks like. It
looks like a mound of earth, in the shape of a
ring, covered with turf, and perhaps with bushes.
They are found all over Ireland. Some people,
who have studied so much that they have lost all
track of what they know and of what they don't
know, say that these raths were made by the
people who lived in Ireland many hundreds of
years ago, and that they were strongholds to
guard themselves and their sheep and their cattle
from their enemies or from wild beasts. But
people who know as much as Mrs. O'Brien, know

43

44 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

that they are the places where the fairies Hve, or
the Good People, as she would call them.

On this night that I have been telling you
about, the Good People inside the rath were
eating and drinking and dancing and making
merry generally, as they do, you know, the most
of the time. Perhaps you would like to have me
tell you how the inside of the rath looked too. I
will do the best I can. In the first place, the walls
were all of silver and the floor was all of gold.
Perhaps you don't know — no, I suppose you
don't know — still you may happen to have heard
of this before : the fairies know just where to find
pretty much all the gold and silver and precious
stones that there are in the world, if they happen
to want them. They don't want much of them,
of course — only just enough to make the walls
and the roofs and the floors of their houses of,
and to put all over their clothes and to make all
their furniture and dishes of, and all their car-
riages and their boats, and a few other things —
but they know where to find plenty of gold and
silver, if they want it.

Now^ I think that I had better give you a little
science. I believe that a book which children
are to read, always ought to teach something, so
I mean to teach you as much as I can. You must
know, then, that gold is one of the heaviest
things in the world. Now^ you know that the

The Little Good People 45

earth is always whirling round and round, so
that the things that it is made of naturally get
shaken up more or less. Besides that, it was
once a good deal softer than it is now, so that the
things that it is made of could move about more
than they can now. And so the most of the gold,
being, as I said, one of the heaviest things, got
sifted down toward the bottom — that is, toward
the centre of the earth. Only a little of it was
left near the top, compared with what went to
the bottom. It would not be at all surprising if
the middle of the earth were a solid lump of gold,
a thousand miles thick. But we poor men cannot
dig down very deep into the earth. We can only
scratch a little dirt off the top, and if we happen
to grub up a few pounds of gold we think that
we are rich, and the rest of the w^orld thinks so
too.

But the fairies laugh at us. They know how
to go as deep into the earth as they choose, and
so any fairy who chooses can give away gold all
his life, and still have more of it in his dust-bin all
the time than all the kings in the world have in
their treasuries. And the other fairies don't call
him rich.

But now we will go back to the rath. Of
course it was all under the ground, so that there
was no daylight. At the time we are talking
about, there would not have been any anyway,

y

46 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

for it was night. The place was Hghted up with
thousands of diamonds and rubies and emeralds,
which were set all over the ceiling and shone
Hke lamps. Now I won't call you ignorant just
because you say that you don't understand how
diamonds could light up anything, for I don't
understand it myself. Let us talk about it
together and try to decide. Suppose you try the
experiment. Some night, after dark, take all the
diamonds you have — every one of them — and
carry them into a dark room and spread them
out, and see if they light up the room at all. I
am sure that you will find that they do not. On
the contrary, if you let go of them, you will have
to go and get a light to hunt for them by. But
I suppose the fairies have some other kind of
diamonds than ours, or else they know some
other way of using the same kind. Sometimes
they use fireflies, caught in spider-web nets, but
these are generally for out of doors. To light up
their houses they almost always use diamonds.

There were two tiny bits of turf fire in the rath.
One of them was at one end of the hall, where
the King sat, for the King to light his pipe by,
and the other was at the other end, for the other
fairy men to light their pipes by. Fairies do not
like fire, as a rule, and they would never have any
more of it about than they could help. But I
know that they must have had some, for I know

The Little Good People 47

that Irish fairies smoke pipes, and how could they
light them unless the}^ kept a little fire on hand?

Now, I know what you will say to that. You
will say : " If they could light a room with
diamonds, why couldn't they light pipes with
them?" Well, that is not very easy to answer,
but I feel sure that even a fairy would never think
of lighting a pipe with a diamond. I have owned
up already that I don't know exactly how they
light rooms with them, but it is easier for me to
imagine a diamond giving light than giving heat.
Isn't it for you? Now, be honest about it.

At one end of the hall sat the King and the
Queen, on their thrones. Near them wxre half a
dozen fairy men who were playing on pipes and
fiddles. All over the floor there were dozens
and scores of fairies, men and women, dancing to
the music. All around the walls stood or sat
many more of them, looking at the dancers,
and now and then applauding and shouting at
particular ones, or talking together, or simply
smoking their pipes.

Suddenly two fairies rushed into the hall, with
a little sound like the noise of a humming-bird's
wings when it passes close to you. From the
lower end of the hall, where they came m, they
went straight through the crowd to where the
King and Queen sat. They dropped on their
knees before them for an instant, and then rose

48 Fairies a7id Folk of L^eland

and spoke to them. In a moment the King
clapped his hands, with a sign for the pipers and
the fiddlers to stop playing. The instant that
they stopped, everybody in the hall was still.

The King stood up and said to them : " Will
ye be still now and listen, all of ye, to the news
that's come to me this minute, and then will ye
help me to think what we're to do about it at
all? Here's these two that's just come in, and
they're just afther tellin' me that they've been
at the O'Briens' house this evenin', and there
they heard talk betune the O'Briens and the Sul-
livans, and it's all decided that both the O'Briens
and the Sullivans is goin' to the States. And it's
sorry I'll be to see the O'Briens lavin' the
counthry. I don't care so much for the Sul-
livans."

'' It was the O'Briens," said the Queen, '' that
always put the bit and sup outside the door for
us, and what we'll be doin' widout the milk and
the pertaties and the fresh wather, I dunno."

" Ye needn't be throubled about that," the
King answered; "haven't we always enough to
eat and drink of our own, whatever happens? "

" Thrue for you," said the Queen, '' we have
our own food and drink, but it's not the same
that we get from human people. Ye know that
same yourself, and it's you as much as any that'll
be missin' them things when the O'Briens is
gone."

The Little Good People 49

" That's the thrue word too," said the King;
" it'll be the bad day for us all out, when they go.
What for are they lavin' the counthry at all? "

" If ye plase, Your Majesty," said one of the
fairies who had brought the news, " we heard all
that too. It's the hard times that's in it. It's that
makes them all want to go, and then, more than
that, it's the bother the Sullivans are put to all
the time, wid the cow givin' no milk and the pig
not gettin' fat, and all that, and they're bound
that they'll go away and stand it no longer."

" Is that it? " said the King. '' It's that divil
Naggeneen that's in it. I told him he could
bother them a little if he Uked, but not to bother
them too much, and now he's drivin' them and
their neighbors out of the counthry, and we all
have to suffer for it. He'll make it up to us in
some way, if they go, or I'll take it out of him.
Come here, Naggeneen ! What are ye doin'
down there by yourself? Come up here and
stand forninst me, till I give ye a piece of me
mind. Now, what's all this about the O'Briens
and the Sullivans lavin' the counthry? What
have ye been about wid them? "

A fairy who had not been in the hall before had
just come in at the far end from the King, who
had caught sight of him. He was smoking a
pipe. He had his hands in the pockets of his little
green breeches, he wore a red jacket, and on his

50 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

head was a red cap. He came slowly up the hall,
when the King called him, and stood before
the throne. '' Take off your cap, ye worthless
vagabone," said the King, " when you speak
to me."

''I wasn't spakin' to you," said Naggeneen;
" it was you that spoke to me. You called me,
and here I am to the fore, though I don't belong
to your pitiful little thribe, and I needn't come
when 3'OU call, if I don't Hke."

'' Oh, needn't ye? " said the King. " Take off
your cap now, or it'll be taken off for ye."

Naggeneen took off his cap.

'' Now%" said the King, '* what have ye been
doin' to the Sullivans, that they're lavin' the
counthry and persuadin' the O'Briens to go wid
them?"

" I've been doin' nothin'," said Naggeneen,
*' but what you said I might do."

"Oh, haven't ye?" said the King. "And
what was that? "

" Oh," said Naggeneen, " I just took all the
cream and the most of .the milk from their cow,
and you yourself had a share of it, as you know
well; and I put a charm on their pig. so that it
wouldn't get fat, no matter how much it 'uld be
atin'; and then I druv the smoke of their fire
down the chimney, and I threw the dishes and the
pans around in the night, just so they wouldn't

The Little Good People 51

get lazy wid restin' too well, and a few more little
things like that."

" Was that all ye did? " said the King. " And
how long have ye been at it that way? "

'' Ever since the day that Mrs. Sullivan threw
the dirthy wather on me, as I was passin' the
house. But I'm not the only one that's in it.
Some of your own people here have helped me,
and good they are at divilment too."

" And those things was all you did, was they? "
said the King. " And didn't I tell ye ye could
bother them a little, but not too much? What
would ye have done if I had told ye to do what ye
liked wid them?"

''What would I have done then? Oh, I'ld
have shown ye the real fun then. What would I
have done then? I'ld have pinched them and
stuck pins in them all day and all night. I'ld have
put charms on themselves, so that they'ld grow
thinner than the pig. I'ld have took the per-
taties out of the creel when they were put to drain
at the door. If they went away from home I'ld
make them think that they saw their house
burning up, and so I'ld scare them to death.
What would I do if you gave me leave? What
wouldn't I do? "

" Well, you've done enough as it is," said the
King, '' to get the whole of us into throuble,
and now let's hear what you're goin' to do to

52 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

get us out of it. Here they are lavin' the
counthry and takin' the O'Briens wid them, that
was ahvays the good neighbors to us, and they
themselves were sometimes useful in their own
way, in spite of themselves. And now I ask
ye, Naggeneen, what are ye goin' to do to get
us out of the throuble ye've got us into?"

" I'm in no throuble meself," Naggeneen
answered, '' and I dunno what I have to do wid
any throuble that you may be in."

" You're in no throuble yourself? Haven't
ye been as good as livin' on the Sullivans all
this time? And now what are ye goin' to do
widout them? "

"I'm goin' to do nothin' widout them; I'm
goin' wid them."

" Goin' wid them ! Goin' wid them ! "

" Them was me words; you and your silly
little thribe can do w^hat ye like; I'm goin' wid
them. It's a stuffy little place, this rath of
yours, and I've a notion thravellin' would be
good for me health, any way."

"But how can ye go wid them? "

" It's not hard at all," said Naggeneen, " and
it's been done before this. I w^as near doin' it
meself once. I don't suppose ye remember me
old friend MacCarthy."

" MacCarthy of Ballinacarthy? " the King
asked.

The Little Good People 53

" The same," said Naggeneen, " and it was
he was the good friend to mortal or fairy. It
was he kept the good house and the good table
and the good cellar — more especially the good
cellar. That was not so many years ago — a
hundred and odd, maybe. A fine man he was;
we don't see his like now. I lived wid him the
most of the time — in the cellar. And the
strange thing about him was that, though
nobody ever had a bad word for him, though all
his servants said that he was the kindest and
the best masther that ever stepped, he could get
nobody to stay in the place of butler. It was
all well enough wid the rest — cooks, maids,
hostlers, stable boys — but the first time ever a
new butler went into that beautiful wine cellar
for wine, back he'ld come in a hurry and say
that he'ld lave his place the next day, and
nothing on earth would keep him in it. Now,
wasn't that strange? "

" Did you say you lived in that cellar? " the
King asked.

'' The most of the time," said Naggeneen.

" Then it was not strange," said the King.

" Any way, strange or not strange," Nagge-
neen went on, '' it was the truth. Never a
butler could he keep in his service. A new
butler would come and he'ld think he was a
made man, old MacCarthy was that well known

54 Fairies and Folk of F^eland

and that well liked all over the counthry. He'ld
wait once at dinner and then down he'ld go to
the cellar for wine. Sometimes he'ld come back
wid the wine and oftener he'ld come back
widout it, but every time he'ld say : ' Mr. Mac-
Carthy, sir, it's much obliged to you I am for
all your kindness, but I'll have to be lavin' your
service to-morrow.' And nobody could see the
why of it.

" And at long last there was young Jack
Leary, that had been all his life in old Mac-
Carthy's stable, and he knew how the old man
was bad off for a butler, and he made bold to ask
for the place. ' If I make ye me butler,' says
the old man, ' will ye go into the cellar and bring
the wine when I ask ye, and make no throuble
about it?'

" ' Is that all? ' says Jack; ' sure, yer honor,
rid be glad to spend all me time, day and
night, in the cellar, only ye might be wantin' me
somewhere else now and then.'

" ' Then look sharp,' says old MacCarthy, ' for
there's gintlemin comin' to dinner to-day. Wait
on the table the best ye know how, and at the
end of it, when I ring the bell three times, do
ye go to the cellar and bring plenty of wine, and
let's have no more nonsinse about it'

" * Niver say it twice,' says Jack; ' yer honor
can depind on me.'

The Little Good People 55

'' Well, ye may belave I was listenin' to all
this, for I wasn't in the cellar all the time. ' His
honor may say it twice,' says I to meself, ' or as
many times as he likes, but you'll never go into
that cellar twice. Jack, me fine boy.'

" So Jack went about his work, and the dinner
went all well enough, till late in the evenin',
when old MacCarthy rang the bell three times,
and off started Jack for the cellar, wid a basket
to bring back the wine. ' It's the silly lot they
war,' says he to himself, ' thim butlers, that
they'ld be afraid to go to the cellar and bring
back a bit of a basket full of wine. The only
thing I don't like about it is that I can't bring
it back in me skin instead of in the basket.'

'' He was thinkin' like this in his mind as he
went down the long, dark stairs wid his candle,
and you may depend I was ready for him, by the
time he got to the bottom. So no sooner did
he touch the key to the lock than I give him a
sort of a laugh and a scream that set the empty
wine bottles that stood outside the door a-dancin'
together. Jack was a good bold boy, sure
enough, and he got the key into the lock and
turned it. Wid that I swung the door open for
him, so hard that it crashed against the wall and
near shook the house down. And then me fine
boy saw all the casks and the hogsheads in
the cellar a-swingin' and a-rockin' and a-whirlin'

56 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

around, as if all the wine had been in him instead
of in them.

" You may be sure he didn't wait long afther
that, but he just dropped his basket and fell all
the way up the stairs and into the room where
the gintlemin was waitin' for their wine. Well,
it was then that old MacCarthy was in the
tow^erin' rage. Never a word could Jack say to
tell where he'd been or how he came back, or
why.

" ' Gintlemin,' says MacCarthy, ' ye'll get your
wine, if I have to go to the cellar for it meself.
But this I tell ye : I'll live no longer in this house,
where I can't get servants to serve me. I'll
be lavin' it to-morrow, and no later. The next
time ye find me at home, ye'll find me in a place
where I can keep a butler and have him do
his work.'

" Wid that he took the lantern and started for
the cellar himself. Ye'll guess that I was in the
dining-room as soon as Jack and heard all this,
and I was back in the cellar, too, before Mac-
Carthy got there. I was sittin' on a cask of port,
when he came in and saw me be the Hght of
the lantern. I was sittin' there, wid a spiggot
over me shoulder. 'Are ye there?' says Mac-
Carthy. 'Who are ye, anyway, and what are ye
doin' there? '

'* * Sure, your honor,' says I, ' a'n't we goin' to

I WAS SITTIN' THERE, WID A SPIGGOT OVER ME SHOULDER.

fOU:

£nox and

The Little Good People 57

move to-morrow, and it's not the likes of a kind
man like you that would be wishin' to lave poor
little Naggeneen behind.'

'* ' Is that the way of it?' says MacCarthy.
' Well, if you're agoin' to move wid us, I see no
use in movin' at all. If I'm to have you in me
cellar, wherever it is, it may as well be at Bal-
linacarthy as anywhere.'

" And from that day till the day of his death
me and old MacCarthy was the best of friends.
And he always brought all his wine from the
cellar himself."

'' And what has all that to do wid us? " said
the King.

"What has it to do wid ye?" said Nagge-
neen. '' It has nothin' to do wid ye, unless ye
want to make it, and never a care I care whether
ye do or not. But it has a good deal to do wid
me. It shows, doesn't it, that I was ready to go
wid old MacCarthy, and him runnin' away from
me; and just so I'm ready to go wid the Sul-
livans, now that they're runnin' away from me.
I've given ye a good hint. Ye can do as ye
plase."

" It's glad rid be," said the Queen, " if we
could be rid of the Sullivans and Naggeneen
both at once, but I dunno what we'll do at all if
the O'Briens go away."

'' I'm not over-fond of Naggeneen meself,"

58 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

said the King, '' but it's a sharp bit of a boy he is,
and I'm thinkin' he may not be far from right
this time. It might be that a new counthry
would be as good for us as for the O'Briens or
the SuUivans, and, anyway, we'ld still be near
to them."

" Do ye mean," the Queen said, '' that ye
think we might all go to the States along wid
the O'Briens and the Sullivans and Nagge-
neen? "

"" If Naggeneen goes," the King replied,
" he'll go along wid us; we'll not go wid him; but
it was just that same that I was thinkin'. And
yet we couldn't do a thing like that widout the
lave of the King of All Ireland."

When the King spoke of the King of All Ire-
land, of course he meant the King of all the
fairies in Ireland. He was himself only the King
of this rath. Of course you know that the
people of Ireland have no kings of their own
any more.

" Naggeneen, me boy," said the King, " just
take your fut in your hand and go to the King
of All Ireland. Give him me compliments and
ask him would he think there was anything
against the whole of us goin' to the States."

*' Is it me that would be runnin' arrants to the
King of All Ireland," Naggeneen answered;
" me, that don't belong to your thribe at all, and

The Little Good People 59

forty lazy spalpeens around here wearin' their
legs off wid dancin' or rustin' them off wid doin'
nothin' at all?"

" It's thrue you don't belong to me thribe,"
said the King, " and glad I am of that same. But
while ye stay in me rath ye'll do what I bid ye.
Why would I kape a dog and bark meself? Go
on, now, and do what I tell ye, or ye know what
I'll do to ye. Be off now!"

Naggeneen was off.

Now, while Naggeneen is gone with his mes-
sage to the King of All Ireland, I will just take
a minute to say something that I have felt like
saying for quite a little while. He will not be
gone much more than a minute. What I have
to say is this : Nearly all the people in this story,
mortals and fairies, too, had the way of speaking
that most Irish people have, which we call a
brogue. Mrs. O'Brien had only a little of it —
just the bit of a soft brogue that comes from
Dublin, where she had lived for a long time.
The most of the others had a good deal more.
But as I go on with the story from here, I see no
use in trying to write the brogue. It is hard to
spell and confusing to read. If you do not know
what a good Irish brogue is, you would never
learn from any attempt of mine to spell it out for
you; and if you do know what it is, you can put it
in for yourself. I may have to try to write a little

6o Fairies a7id Folk of Irela^id

of it now and then, for there is some Irish that
does not look Hke Irish when it is written in
English, but I shall use as little of it after this as
I can. Naggeneen is back by this time.

Naggeneen sauntered into the hall where the
King and the Queen and all the company were
waiting for him, with his hands in his pockets,
quite as if he had been out for a quiet stroh and
had come back because he was tired of it.
" Well," said the King, '' did you see the King
of All Ireland?"

" I saw him with my good-looking eyes,"
Naggeneen answered.

" And what did he say? "

" He said he'ld come here and talk to you
himself, and, by the look of him, I think it's a
pleasant time he'll be giving you."

'' Then why is he not here as soon as you? "
the King asked.

'' Oh, nothing would do for him," said Nag-
geneen, '' but that he and his men must come on
horseback. They can come no faster that way,
but they think it's due to their dignity. They
had to wait for the horses to be ready, and so I
beat them."

Naggeneen had scarcely said this when the
door flew open at the end of the hall, and, with a
rush and a whirl, in came a great troupe of fairies
on horseback — the King of All Ireland and his

The Little Good People 6i

men. They all leaped down from their horses,
and instantly every horse turned into a green
rush, such as grows beside the bogs. The King
of All Ireland walked quickly up to the King of
the rath and stood before him, with an awful
frown on his face. The King of the rath was
plainly nervous. " Will you have a light for your
pipe, Your Majesty? " he asked.

" Never mind my pipe now," said the King of
All Ireland. " Tell me first of all, who is this mes-
senger that you sent to me? " The King of All
Ireland had only a little bit of brogue — the
DubHn kind.

"Sure," said the King of the rath, ''that's
only poor Naggeneen."

" Only poor Naggeneen ! " cried the King of
All Ireland. " And what are you doing with
him? Do you see the red jacket he has on?
Why doesn't he wear a green jacket, like your
people? You know what his red jacket means
as well as I. He belongs to the fairies who Hve
by themselves, not to those who live together
honestly in a rath. Why do you have him with
your honest green jackets?"

" Sure, Your Majesty," said the King of the
rath, " I thought it was no harm. He said he
was tired of being by himself, and you know how
handy he is with the fiddle or the pipes. If he'd
been a fir darrig, that's always playing tricks and

62 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

making trouble everywhere, why, then, of course
— but he was only a poor cluricaun "

" Yes," the King of All Ireland interrupted,
" only a poor cluricaun, that does nothing but
rob gentlemen's wine cellars and keep himself
so drunk that he's of no use when he's wanted
for any good. And hasn't he made you as much
trouble as any fir darrig could do? "

'' I was a lepracaun, too, once, Your Majesty,"
Naggeneen said.

'' A lepracaun, were you? What did you do
then? And when was it and how did it happen
that a lazy lump like you was ever a lepracaun? "

" It was a long time ago," said Naggeneen,
ready enough to talk about anything to draw the
King's thoughts away from the trouble that he
had made. ''After old MacCarthy, of Bal-
linacarthy, died, those that came after him did
not keep up his cellar well, and I felt lonely and
sad, and I didn't care to drink any more "

" Lonely and sad you must have been," said
the King of All Ireland; " but you did drink still,
did you not, though you didn't care for it? "

" True for you, Your Majesty," said Nagge-
neen, '' I did a little, just for my health. But
I was so lonely and so falling to pieces with
idleness "

" Falling to pieces with idleness ! " the King
interrupted again. '' If idleness could make you

The Little Good People 63

fall to pieces, there wouldn't have been a piece of
you left big enough to make trouble in a fly's
eye, these last seven hundred years."

'* As you say, Your Majesty," Naggeneen
went on, '' but, anyway, I was a lepracaun, and
I did what any other lepracaun does : I sat in the
field or under a tree and made brogues. But it
was sorry work and people was always trying to
catch me, to make me show them the gold they
thought I had. And one time a great brute of
a spalpeen did catch me, and he nearly broke me
in two with the squeeze he gave me, so that I
wouldn't get away till I'd showed him the gold.
And I nearly had to show it to him, but I made
him look away for a second, and then of course I
was off. And after that my friend the King here
let me come and live in the rath, just for com-
pany— not that I belong to his little tribe at all."

" And now you see," said the King of All Ire-
land, turning from Naggeneen to the King of
the rath, " what trouble comes to you from
taking those into your rath that have no right
there. He's sending people out of Ireland that
might be of use to you and to all of us. He wants
to go with them, and that is no loss, but you
want to go, too, and to take all your people. That
might be a loss, though I don't know that it
would."

'' We think it's best that we should go. Your

64 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Majesty," the King of the rath answered, meekly,
" if you see no reason why not."

" I see reasons enough why not," said the
King of All Ireland. " You don't know where
you are going, nor what you'll find there. You
don't know how you're to live, nor whether
it'll be any fit place to live. You don't know
whether the people there will help you or hin-
der you."

" Wherever the O'Briens go, they'll help us,"
the King of the rath answered. " We don't like
to have them leave us here."

" You've gone contrary to the law enough
already," said the King of All Ireland, '' in
taking in this fellow with the red coat. Now
you may take all the consequences of it and go
where you like. I don't care where you go and
I think nobody cares, only I think it may be best
for all the Good People in Ireland to have you
out of it. Mount your horses," he shouted to his
men, '' and we'll be off out of this ! "

He took one of the little green rushes from the
floor and sat astride it, as a little boy rides on his
father's cane. " Borram, borram, borram ! " he
said, and instantly the rush was a beautiful white
horse. Every one of his men did the same.
Each one took one of the rushes and sat astride
of it and said, " Borram, borram, borram ! "
and every one of the rushes grew into a horse.

The Little Good People 65

There was a little whirring sound, like that of a
swarm of bees, and they were all gone.

Everybody in the rath was silent for a few
minutes. The King and the Queen looked at
each other and were much troubled. Nagge-
neen, without making a bit of noise, scuttled
down to the farthest corner of the hall. The
others seemed not to know where to look or
what to do or to think. Then the King turned
toward them and said: ''It's all over; we
couldn't stay here now. Wherever has Nag-
geneen got to? "

The fairies who were nearest to Naggeneen
hustled him forward and he stood before the
King again. " Naggeneen," said the King, '' it's
trouble enough you've made for all of us, and it's
ballyragging enough you and all the rest of us
have got for it, and we don't know, as His
Majesty said, what more is to come. So now do
the only thing you was ever good for and give us
a tune out of the fiddle."

It was the only thing that Naggeneen was
good for, and the only thing that was not
mischief that he liked to do. He took a fiddle
from one of the fairies who had been playing for
the dancing before all the confusion began. He
held the fiddle under his chin for a moment,
while everybody waited, and then he began to
play.

66 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

He played first some old tunes that every fairy
in Ireland knows well. But not every fairy in
Ireland can play them as Naggeneen did. They
were tunes which everybody listening in that
rath had known for hundreds of years. There
were wild and strange airs that made them
remember days when Ireland was a strange
country, even to them; then the music was full
of wonder and mystery, like the spells of the old
Druids; then it was strong and free and fierce,
and they thought of Finn McCool and the
Fenians, and the days when Erin had heroes to
guard her from her foes. The fiddle was telling
them the story of their own lives and of all that
they had ever seen and known. Now it was a
strange music, which they could not under-
stand— which the player could understand as
little as the rest — but it was soft and sweet, and
yet deep and bold, and the fairies trembled as
they remembered the holy Patrick and a mighty
power in the worlds of the seen and of the unseen.
This passed away and the music came with the
stir and the swing of marching men, and the
fairies were again in the days of King Brian
Boru, with Ireland free and brave and strong. It
grew sad; it gushed out Hke sobs from a broken
heart; then it was quieter, but still full of a softer
sorrow; now it was merry and reckless. It made
the fairies remember all that they had ever seen

The Little Good People 67

in the lives of the people whom they had known
so long — the cruel hardship, war, sickness, hun-
ger, and then, besides, the faith, the kindli-
ness, the light-heartedness that had saved them
through it all. There were tunes that every man
and woman in Ireland knows — tunes that you
know — old airs that every Irish fiddler or piper
or singer learns from the older ones, that the
oldest ones of all learned, they say, from the
fairies. And under all the music, whether grave
or gay, there went a strain of grief, sometimes
almost harsh and sometimes scarcely heard, and
as the fairies listened to it they grew pale at the
thought that now they were to go away from all
that they had known, to find something which
they did not know. While they were thinking of
this the music changed again. It was a soft
murmur, like the sound of the sea that is kept
forever in a sea-shell. Then it grew loud and
rough, with the rush of winds and the crash of
waves. The fairies were filled with fright, and
before they knew that they were afraid, the music
was singing a song of hope, and then, all at once,
it grew^ as merry as if there had never been a sad
thought in the world.

For a moment the fairies listened to it and all
their feet began to stir restlessly on the floor.
One of the fairy men caught the hand of a fairy
girl — a fairy girl with cheeks like the tiny petals

68 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

in the heart of a rose, with a white gown like a
mist, and hair like fine sunbeams falling on the
mist; he threw his arm about her waist, and they
danced away down the hall. In an instant all the
rest were dancing, too, alone, in pairs, and in
rings. Naggeneen looked on and laughed till he
could scarcely play. All this time his music had
moved him less than anybody else who heard it.
He did not feel what he had made the others feel,
but he knew how to pour it all out of his fiddle.

The King made a sign for him to stop. All
the dancers were still in an instant. The lights
in the hall went out. The next minute, if you
had been outside the rath and had laid your ear
down on the turf which covered it, you would
have heard nothing more than you might hear
under the turf at any other time or in any other
place.

rv

THE CLEVERNESS OF MORTALS

If you live in the city of New York, or if you
have ever been in the city of New York for any
long time, you know how disheartening, how
terrible, and how altogether unreasonable the
climate can be at times. But you also know how
heavenly it can be on an autumn day, when the
sky and the air and the water are all in a good
humor. To see and to feel the best of it, you
must be down in the Narrows, or somewhere
near there. The fierce heat has gone out of the
air, but there is a gentle warmth left in it. All
the shores near you are turning from green to
brown and yellow, with here and there a dash of
red. The sun makes every sail in the bay a
gleaming spot of white. Far up the bay you see
just an end of the city, with the tall buildings
standing so close that it looks like one great
castle, built all over a hill that slopes steeply

69

70 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

down to the water on both sides. The Bridge
looks like a spider's web, spun across to the other
shore. Beyond it all the hills look purple,
through the thin mist. If, instead of having seen
all this often, you saw it for the first time — if you
w^ere coming from a far country, where you had
always been poor — if you had toiled all your life
to pay your rent, never expecting to do more —
then perhaps you would look, more than any-
thing else, at the giant woman standing before
you and holding her torch high into the sky to
light the world.

It was on such a day as this that the O'Briens
and the Sullivans saw New York first. It was on
the same day that the fairies who had left the rath
and follow^ed them saw it too. The O'Briens and
the Sullivans had left their old home and gone to
Queenstown, and the fairies had followed them.
Cork and Queenstown had rather alarmed the
fairies. They did not like the look of a city. It
looked cold and stony and uncomfortable. It
did not look like a good place to dance out of
doors at night. They almost wished that they
had stayed at home and let the O'Briens and the
Sullivans go where they liked without them.
Some of them even Avanted to go back, but Nag-
geneen laughed at them, and fairies can stand
being laughed at even less than human beings.
But they all hoped that when the O'Briens and

The Cleverness of Mortals 71

the Sullivans got wherever they were going, it
would not prove to be in a city.

Then the O'Briens and the Sullivans went on
board a ship and were stowed away in a place
forward, with many other people, which the
fairies did not think roomy or airy or pleasant in
any way. But they were not obliged to stay in it.
They found better places on the ship. Nobody
could see them, so they went where they Hked.
They went out on the bow, where the lookout
stood, and vv^atched with him for sails and for
tiny puffs of smoke by day and for little glimmers
of light by night. They ran about the bridge
and swarmed up the rigging. They even danced
on the deck, as if they were in a field at home;
and the deck was dewy at night, just like the
field. They fluttered and whirled in circles
around the red light on the one side of the ship
and the green light on the other side, and they
reminded them of the rubies and the emeralds
that had helped to light their own rath.

One day they saw swimming in the water
beside the ship an ugly creature, like a man, with
a red nose, tangled green hair, green teeth, and
fingers with webs between them, like a duck's
foot. There was another creature, like a woman,
very beautiful, but with green hair, like the man.
These were merrows — sea fairies.

''Where are you bound in that ship?" the
merrows called to them.

72 Fairies and Folk of Irelafid

" Where would we be bound at all," the King
answered, '' but to the States, where the ship's
bound?"

'' And what are ye goin' there for? " the mer-
rows asked again.

" Sure," said Naggeneen, '' it's followin' the
O'Briens and the Sullivans we are, and it's the
long way they're takin' us."

" Could you tell us what the States is like at
all? " asked the King. " Is it Hke Cork? "

" There's parts of them," said the man mer-
row, '' that's more like Cork than Cork itself, and
there's other parts of them that's no more like
Cork than the sea here is like Cork Harbor."

" But are there no places there," the King
asked again, '' like the country parts of Ireland,
with the fields and the bogs and all? "

" I can't tell you that," the merrow answered.
" We've never been far on the land. Deep down
under the sea it's the same way it is under the sea
about Ireland. There's the land at the bottom,
with the sand all fine and firm, like a floor, and
there's the water above, like a green sky, and
there are the shells and the sea-flowers, and there-
are the weeds that wave around you and over
you, Hke red and green and purple curtains to
your house, and it's all as cool and as neat as any
of the sea-places around Ireland. And if you Hke
to go up to get the warmth of the sun or the light

WHERE ARE YOU BOUND IN THAT SHIP?"

THE NEW YfrRK

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOft, LENOX AN»
riLDEN FOUNtlATIOWS.

The Cleverness of Mortals 73

of the stars, there's white sand where you can lie
at your ease, and there's great rocks where you
can sit and look out over the sea and get the fresh
breeze. And that's all wx know of it; we've not
been away from the sea."

And after a week of voyaging through the
sea — after going on and on for so long and so far
that both fairies and mortals began to think that
they must soon fall over the edge of the earth —
the ship suddenly stood up straight, instead of
roUing and pitching about, and a little later they
saw the giant woman before them, holding up
her torch, and beyond her they saw the city.
And then it was only a bit of a while longer till
they came close to the city.

'' Look at it! " cried the King to all the fairies,
who were crowded at the bow; '' it's like the
country, after all ! Look at all the grass and the
trees ! But it has an iron chain all around it. I
don't like the look of that." All fairies hate iron.
They more than hate it; they simply cannot
endure it. To touch any iron at all would hurt a
fairy more than it would hurt you to touch it
when it was red hot.

'* But it's only a small place, anyway," said
Naggeneen. '' Look at the houses beyond there !
There was nothing like them in Cork ! And do
you mind them strings of coaches, running along
up in the air? "

74 Fairies aiid Folk of Irela7id

'' I was takin' note of them," said the King;
" sure it's the strange country ! "

The fairies all followed the O'Briens and the
SulHvans. They were resolved not to lose sight
of their only friends, in a land like this. They
found that the O'Briens and the Sullivans were
quickly taken to a big round house, in the very
bit O'f a place like the country that they had first
seen. The fairies did not like the inside of the
big round house, so the King left a few to watch
the O'Briens and the Sullivans, and to bring
word if they made any important move, and the
rest went out and found pleasanter places on the
grass and under the trees. They had managed
to get into the Battery Park without touching
any of the horrible iron chains that were around
it. They would have been a very sorry-looking
company, if anybody could have seen them.

" I don't like it at all," the King said, " and
nothing would please me better than to be at
home again. If they're going to live in that big
round house, I dunno what we'll do. We want
to be near to them, and yet this is no place for us.
We could stand it a little while, maybe. The
grass is fine and smooth for dancing, but these
lights, like suns, that they have all around on the
tops of the poles, are terrible. Do they want no
night at all here? And then what a noise there
is ! It's nothing but rattle and roar all day, and

The Cleverness of Mortals 75

then the boats do be screeching around all
night."

" Have no fear," said the Queen. " The
O'Briens would never live in a place like this.
They'll soon be out of it, and then we'll follow
them and find a better place near where they go."

It proved that the Queen was right. Before
long there came an alarm from those who had
been left to watch, that the O'Briens and the
Sullivans were coming out. In a moment more
they came, and the whole tribe followed them.
Old Mrs. O'Brien, who never forgot anything
that was worth remembering, had not forgotten
to write to some old friends who had come to
America years before, that she and her son and
his wife and their neighbors were coming.
These old friends had found tenements for them,
and soon they were in new homes. There was
enough of Mrs. O'Brien's money to keep them
for a little while, and they hoped that before it
was gone, John and Peter would find work and
would be getting more money.

The fairies followed them, filled with more
and more wonder. For miles they followed,
and then for more miles. It was not that the
distance troubled them. They could have gone
a hundred times as far w^ithout thinking of being
tired. But they could scarcely believe their eyes
when they saw these never-ending stone roads

76 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

and these never-ending rows of stone and brick
houses, all built so that they touched one
another. They could not understand how
people could live so close together, nor why
they should want to do it, if they could. Perhaps
you have never thought of it, but it is really true
that the ways of mortals are just as wonderful to
fairies as the ways of fairies are to mortals.

Indeed, the place where they found them-
selves at last was not a pleasant one for fairies.
It was two places, in fact, but they were so much
alike that there was nothing to choose between
them. A tenement had been found for the
O'Briens, up many flights of stairs, in a house
with many other tenements. There was barely
enough room in it for them to live, though it
was better, in that respect, than their old cabin
in Ireland. The stairs and the passage were
far from clean, and they led down to a street
that was just as far from clean.

It was hard all over with square stones, which
had sunk, in places, and made hollow^s, which
were filled w^ith muddy water. Lean cats
scuttled about here and there, and ran away, if
anybody came near them, as if they expected to
have stones thrown at them, and then, when the
danger seemed past, they rummaged in the ash-
barrels for scraps of meat or fish or bread. The
people who lived in the houses sat on the door-

The Cleverness of Mortals 'jy

steps and on the curb-stones, and chattered and
laughed and quarrelled and slept. The sun
shone into the street, but it could not shine
between the houses. A breeze blew up from the
East River, which was not far away, but the air
was none too fresh, for all that. The place that
had been found for the Sullivans was in another
street, not far away. It was much the same, as
I have said, but it was even smaller, for there
were only two of the Sullivans, and they could
get on with less space.

The fairies were fairly terrified at all this.
And was it any wonder? The poor Httle Good
People! They had been used to a beautiful,
bright hall, to green, fresh grass to dance on in
the quiet, misty moonlight, and to cool shade
for the day. What could they do in such a place
as this? They remembered how the King of All
Ireland had told them that they did not know
whether the place where they were going was a
place fit for them to live in.

The first thing that the King did was to send
some of the fairies in all directions to see if they
could spy out any place where the whole tribe
could live in a decent and comfortable manner.
The street, he was sure, would never do. Of
course, if the Fairy King wanted a rock or a hill
to open and let him into it, it would open, and
he could live in it, if he chose, just as he used

'^S Fairies and Folk of Ireland

to in his own old rath. And no mortal who
might happen to be about would know that
anything unusual was happening. And just so
the street would open for him, if he wanted it to.
But before he had decided to try it he saw a
place where some men had opened it, and that
was quite enough for him. If you have ever
seen a New York street opened, you know what
it was like; if you have not, it is of no use to
try to tell you.

But the messengers whom the King had sent
in all directions were scarcely gone when those
who had started toward the west were back with
joyful news. " We have found a beautiful
place," they said. '' It's only a bit of a way from
here, and if we live there we'll not be far from
the O'Briens. Ye never saw grass smoother in
your life, though it's not quite so green, maybe,
as it is at home. And then there's tall trees of
all kinds, and there's bushes that'll have flowers
on them, belike, in the right time of the year.
And there's smooth roads and walks, and there's
hills and great rocks, that we could live inside
of as easy as in a rath itself. It's a much quieter
place than here, too, and the air is better,
though it's so near. It's not wide toward the
west, but off to the south it reaches as far as
we can see, like a forest."

The King left a guard to watch, lest the

The Cleverness of Mortals 79

O'Briens should like the place as little as himself
and should leave it and be lost, and then he
hurried with the rest to see the new country that
had been discovered. If you know New York
very w^ell indeed, you have guessed already that
it w^as the north end of Central Park which the
fairies had found. But you may know New
York pretty well and not know, as a good many
people who live in it do not, that there is any
north end to Central Park, still less that it is far
prettier than the south end.

After all the distressing streets and houses
that he had seen, the King was delighted with
it. He found a big rock, w^hich was the base
of a hill, and at the top of it stood a queer little
square stone house. Back in this hill, he
declared, behind the rock and under the stone
house, would be as pleasant a place to live as
ever the rath was. He made the rock open, and
he and all the fairies with him went in, although
the policemen and the men and women in
carriages and on horses and on bicycles and on
foot who were all about, did not see that the
rock looked at all different.

" A fine place for us it will make," said the
King; " w^e couldn't be asking for a better. Get
to work now, all of you. Hollow out the inside
of the hill, only leave pillars to hold up the roof,
and go and find gold for the floor and silver for

8o Fairies and Folk of Ireland

the walls, and you can have every other pillar
gold and every other one silver, after you get
the rest done, and take down the rock that you
left. And then find diamonds and rubies and
emeralds to light it with."

No, I am not going to explain to you how
the fairies did all this. I shall not tell you how
they got the rock out nor what they did with it
after they got it out. I will tell you all that
there is any need of your knowing about it, and
that is that in a very short time it was all done;
that the new fairy palace was as much larger and
finer and better than any fairy palace in Ireland
ever was as we Americans intend that every-
thing here shall be larger and finer and better
than anything anywhere else. And it was all
done before the most of the messengers who
had been sent in other directions got back to
tell what they had found.

These fairies went straight to where the
O'Briens lived, and there the fairies who had
been left on guard told them w^here to find the
King, and asked them to say to him that they
were tired of their duty and they wished that
he could send somebody else to take their places.

The fairies were not much surprised when
they found the King and all the tribe settled in
a new palace, as comfortably as if they had never
moved. The building of a palace in a night is

The Cleverness of Mortals 81

no more to a fairy than it is to a New York man
to come back after he has been out of town for
a month and find a house twenty stories high in
a place where there was a hole in the ground
when he went away.

" What's the use at all to be tellin' Your
Majesty what we've found in the places we've
been," said one of the first who came back, '' and
you livin' this minute in the finest palace that
was ever dug out of a hill? "

" You may tell us all the same," said the
King.

" Well and good," said the fairy. " It's to the
south I've been. First there's all this island that
we're on, down to the place with the grass and
the iron chain around it. Then there's the bay,
with the ships. Then there's another island,
with hills and trees, and then there's the sea, and
a long shore, all sand, and hundreds of houses,
big and little, where people Hve. And that's
all."

Another fairy said : '* I went farther to the
west than this, but not much farther till I came
to a great river. Of course I couldn't be crossin'
the runnin' water, so I went round the mouth of
it and then kept on. The country was all flat
for a good way, and bars of iron everywhere,
laid two and two, so many of them that I didn't
dare rest anywhere, and there were towns and

82 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

plenty of people, and then at long last I came to
hills."

I suppose you know, without my telling you,
that fairies cannot bear to cross running water,
any more than they can bear to touch iron, and
that was why this fairy had to go around the
mouth of the Hudson River instead of going
across it.

Then came another fairy, who had been to the
north, and he said : '' It beats everything, the
lovely country I've seen. Never a better did I
see anywhere. Hills and woods and mountains,
and the trees all yellow and red and green and
brown. I went up the big river on this side for
a long way, and then I saw great mountains on
the other side. So beautiful they looked, I
wanted to go to them, only, sure, I couldn't cross
the river. So I went round the head of it and
came down back to the mountains. And there I
found that they were full of fairies already. But
they seemed to be Dutch, and it's little English
they could talk, let alone Irish. Still we got
along, and they gave me some mighty fine drink
that they had. And they said that we could
come there, the whole tribe, and welcome kindly,
and I'M say it was a good place to go, only it's
farther ofif than this from them we want to be
near."

" We'll stay where we are," said the King.

The Cleverness of Mortals 83

" It's as well that we know what's all around us,
but here we'll be more to ourselves, as many
people as there are, for I'm thinkin' there's no
fairies but us here."

Then slowly out of the crowd of fairies one
came forward and said : " Your Majesty, could
I be saying something that's breakin' my heart?
It's hard for me to say and it'll maybe be harder
for you to hear; but it's on my mind and I can't
get it ofif my mind. Will you forgive me if I
say it? "

And the King answered : " It's much that's
bad and a little that's good we've heard since we
left our own home. But it's best that w^e know
all there is to know, bad or good. Say what
you have to say."

" It's not far I've been," said the fairy; " only
around here in the city that's all about us; but
many things I've seen, and wonderful things.
Ah, Your Majesty, don't blame me for what I'm
saying, but what's to become of us all and of you
yourself, I dunno. We know all about magic;
we've known all about it for years — aye, for ages.
And we thought that made us better than
mortals. We thought they could never do the
things we could do; maybe they never can. But
oh, Your Majesty, they're doing things as good
as we can do, or better. You wouldn't believe
what the mortals in this country do, if you wasn't

84 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

after seein' it. They do things as wonderful as
we ourselves, and it's iron, iron, iron every-
where. We can do nothing with iron — we can't
touch it — and what will we do at all to be ahead
of them, or even up with them? "

"What's all this they do?" said the King.

*' You saw yourself," the fairy said, '' the
coaches that went along up in the air. They go
on bridges, miles long, built of iron. And they
run on bars of iron. You saw for yourself that
they had no horses, and the coach in front that
pulls them is all made of iron, and men ride in
them, as if it was no harm at all to touch iron.
And that's not all. There are other coaches that
go in the streets without horses. They have no
iron coach in front to pull them. They go in
different ways. Sometimes there's an iron rope,
that's all the time moving and moving along
under the street, and there's a gripping iron
under the coach that takes hold on it, and so it's
pulled along. And sometimes there's only a
little string — not iron, I think, but some other
metal — and something just reaches down from
the coach and touches it, and that makes it go.
I dunno how it is, but it makes it go. And some-
times there's fire comes out of it."

Then another fairy came out of the crowd and
stood before the King. '' Your Majesty," he
said, " I can tell you more than that. I have

The Cleverness of Mortals 85

been about the city, too, and I went into some of
the houses. I saw a man talking to a little box
on the wall. I came close and I heard that the
box was talking to him too. I thought there
was a fairy inside it, but I looked inside, and
there was nothing there but iron and strange
works that I couldn't understand. There were
little strings of copper coming out of the box,
and then a long string of iron, that led away
over the tops of the houses."

The fairy stopped and shivered as he thought
of the horrible string of iron. Then he went on :
" I followed it and it came into another house,
where there was so much iron that I couldn't
stay there. But the strings of iron came out of
this house and led in all directions. I followed
them and I listened everywhere and I found what
they were for, though how they do it all I dunno.
And it's this way : Anywhere that there's a box
you can talk to them that's in the house where
all the iron strings go. And if they like to help
you, you can talk to anybody else where there's
a box. It may be a mile of¥ or it may be a dozen
miles oE. Many a time those in the house where
all the strings are will not help them that wants
to talk, but when they will, it's easy. Yes, Your
Majesty, one man talks to another ten miles off,
as if he was standing by his side."

" Your Majesty," said another fairy, " you

86 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

saw yourself the bright lights that were at the
place where the grass was, that we came to first,
and you've seen thousands more of them since.
Do you know that they're not candles, and
they're not lamps, and that there's no fire to
them at all? There's strings of something, what-
ever it is, from one of them to another, and the
light goes through that, whatever it is."

'' There's another thing that they do with
strings like that," said still another fairy. '' I
saw men doing it not far from here. They made
a hole in a rock and they put one end of a string
in it. Then where the other end was, a man
pushed a thing like a sort of handle, and the rock
was all burst open, and nobody had touched it."

And another fairy said : '' Your Majesty,
there are boats all the time going across the
rivers — across the running water. Of course we
always knew that mortals could cross running
water, but these boats go without sails or oars,
like the ship that we came here on. To be sure
I couldn't go on one, because it was across run-
ning water, but I went near one, when it was at
the shore, and it was all full of iron, and I got
the most awful pains from being near it. It was
as bad, almost, as I felt coming here, when I'ld
get too near the iron sides of the ship."

" And a strange thing it was that I saw too,"
said another fairy. " I saw people looking into

The Cleveriicss of Mortals 2>j

little boxes of wood, so I looked in too. And in
one I saw a woman dancing, and in another there
were horses running, and in another I saw two
men lighting. And it w^as not a real woman or
real horses or real men, but only pictures that
moved and did the things that real people and
horses would do."

The King listened to all this and then he sat
and thought. '' What is there in it that I can't
do? " he asked. '' Do you not all know^ of the
coaches in Ireland that are drawn by horses
without heads and driven by coachmen without
heads? "

All the fairies looked at one another and
nodded and said, '' Yes, yes, we know."

But Naggeneen came forward and stood
before the throne. Nobody had noticed that he
had been listening or that he was there. " And
what if those coaches were in Ireland? " he said.
" They had horses, though the horses had no
heads. Can you make iron coaches go without
any horses at all? "

The King was trying to talk boldly, but he
stammered and grew pale at the very thought of
having anything to do with an iron coach, and
he did not answer. He went on instead : '* Can
I not send any one of you on a message, as fast
as the wind? '*

" But can you talk for ten miles," Naggeneen

88 Fairies and Fol'k of Ireland

asked, '' and will the very voice of you go as fast
as the Hghtning? "

*' Why would I want to be doin' that," said
the King, '' when I can send a messenger as fast
as I like?"

" That's not the question," said the cruel Nag-
geneen; *' can you do it? "

'' I never tried," said the King. "And can I not
light up this palace," he went on, " or any other
palace, with diamonds? Can I not make a light
so that a man who looks behind him when he is
going on a journey or at work in the fields will
think his house is on fire and run back? "

" And when he has run back," said Nagge-
neen, '' will he find that his house is on fire?
You know that he will not. It's only glamour,
and he'll soon be laughing at you. Oh, we can
catch a few firebugs in spiders' webs and deceive
a boy or a girl that's passing, and maybe make
them turn aside and dance with us, but can you
put real lights all over the country for miles —
lights that will burn on and on and show real
things? Our lights are lies themselves and they
can no more than lead a silly mortal astray for a
time; their lights tell the truth. What else can
you do? "

The King had lost the most of his boldness.
" They say," he said, '' that men can burst open
the rock. Can I not do that as well? "

The Cleverness of Mortals 89

" You can open this rock for us to pass
through," said Naggeneen; " and what then? A
man can see it open for a moment, if you choose
to let him, and the next minute it's all as one as
if you had never touched it. And the man
thinks that's wonderful, for he doesn't know that
you can do it no other way. All glamour again !
Can you burst the rock open and leave it open,
so that it will always be so, for mortal and for
fairy? "

" Why should I want to be doin' that? " said
the King.

" For the same reason makes the men want to
do it, but you couldn't. And those boats that
cross the river, full of iron — can you make them,
and can you cross the running water in them? "

The King had no voice to answer. " And
the pictures in the boxes," Naggeneen went on;
" can you make pictures dance? "

" Sure," said the King, " I can make a man
think he sees anything I like — a woman dancing
or a horse running, or anything."

'* Glamour! Glamour! Glamour!" cried Nag-
geneen. '' You can make him think he sees !
Yes, but he does not see. You can no more
make a picture dance than you can cross a
river ! " And Naggeneen turned on his heel and
walked off, as if he thought the King a poor
creature that was not worth talking to.

90 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

The King had no more courage left in him
than if he had been talking to the King of All
Ireland instead of to Naggeneen. '' Nagge-
neen," he cried, '^ come back and tell us some-
thing better nor all this. It's not pleasant you
are in your talk, and it's often you make me
angry with you, but after all you're cleverer
than any of us. Tell us what to do. It was not
like this where we lived before. There we could
do all manner of things that mortals could not,
and they were afraid of us."

" And so here too," said Naggeneen, " you
can do all manner of things that mortals cannot,
but they can do as many that you cannot — as
many and better."

" But what are we to do," the King went on,
" to show them that we're their masters? Sure
we're cleverer than them all out, and we can
prove it in some way."

"' King," said Naggeneen, speaking as boldly
as if he were himself a greater king, ^^ you can
never prove that you're cleverer than men, for
you're not cleverer. It was a poor, wasted, weak,
and sorrowful country that we came from, and
it's a rich, new, strong, and happy country that
we've come to. There's the differ. Clever you
are, maybe, and your people, too, and I may be
clever in my own way, and we may play our
little tricks on mortals, as I did on the Sullivans,

The Cleverness of Mortals 91

if they're as stupid as them. But mortals can
be cleverer than we ever can when they are
clever, and they can beat us every time if they
know how. And do you know why? Because
they have what we have not — because they have
souls. I heard a school-master say once that the
word ' mortal ' was made from a word that meant
death. And they call mortals that, I'm thinkin',
because they never die. But you will die, King,
and all your people, and I. We live on and on
for thousands of years, and men come and
change and pass away, but at the last day we
shall be gone, as a bit of cloud up in the sky is
gone when the sun shines on it. That's why men
will always be greater and finer and stronger
than us, with all our magic."

The fairies were all so terrified that
they shrank away from Naggeneen and clung
together and shook, in their fright, for this fear
of living for a long time and then going out
like a candle is their greatest fear. There was
not a bit of color left in the King's face now. It
was almost with a sob that he spoke again, and
there was a kind of beseeching in his tone as he
said : " Naggeneen, don't talk like that to us !
We don't know it ! It may be so, but we don't
know it! We've tried many a time to find out,
but no one that knew would ever tell us! We
may have souls ! We don't know that we've not !
We may be saved ! "

92 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" You do know it ! " Naggeneen cried. " Why
will you try to deceive yourselves? You've no
soul and I've no soul, and there's no way that we
can have them. If there'd been any way, I'ld
have had one long ago. But we'll never have
them, and mortals will always outwit us, if they
half know how. Shall I tell you how one of them
outwitted me — a big, lazy, stupid gommoch,
with not enough brains to keep his neck safe? "

The fairies were far past caring whether they
heard a story or not, but they listened as Nag-
geneen went on. '' I'm after tellin' you," he
said, " that if there was any way that one of us
could be gettin' a soul, I'ld have had one long
ago. This was the way I tried it, and a silly
mortal outwitted me. Guleesh na Guss Dhu
was the name that was on him. I had heard —
and I believed it — that if I could get a mortal
woman married to me — a woman with a soul —
that I would get a soul, too, that way. Well, I
was never over-modest in my tastes, you know,
and I thought that the daughter of the King
of France was about right for me. A beautiful
girl she was, with the rose and the lily fighting in
her cheeks, and she was eighteen years old. But
sure I thought that the differ of a few thousand
years in our ages would be nothing to me, and
I hoped it would be nothing to her either.

" I was living in a rath and wearing a green

The Cleverness of Mortals 93

jacket then. All the others in the rath promised
that they'ld help me. The King's daughter was
to be married to the son of the King of another
country on November Eve; and you know
there's no better time to steal a girl than the
night she's to be married, and November Eve is
a fine time, too, so it was settled that we'ld go
over to France and steal her on that night. But,
as you know, we needed a mortal to help us.
How else could we be bringin' her across from
France? If we could put her on a horse behind
a man, she'ld have flesh and blood to take a
grip of, but if she was put up behind one of us,
she might as well try to hold to a pufT of smoke.
You know that.

" We got ready, making sure that we'ld find
some fool of a mortal ready for us when the time
came, and sure enough, when we'd been out for
a little look at the country before starting, and
were coming back, there sat this same Guleesh
na Guss Dhu, between the rath and the gable of
his father's house, that was near by, staring up
at the moon, like he'd never seen one before.
There was no need to try to catch him or to bring
him with us, or the likes of that. All we had to
do was to let him hear us as we passed and let
him see the door of the rath open, and in he came
of himself to see what it was all about. We
hadn't let him see ourselves yet, but he heard us

94 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

all calling : ' My horse and bridle and saddle !
My horse and bridle and saddle ! ' and what did
he do but call out after us : ' My horse and bridle
and saddle ! '

'' There was the beam of a plough lying near,
and I changed it into a horse for him, and pleased
he was when he saw it standing forninst him,
with its bridle of gold and saddle of silver and
all. The minute he saw it he jumped on it, and
then we let him see all ourselves and our horses,
and he nearly fell off again, with the sight of the
crowd of us.

'' Then I said to him : ' Are you coming with
us to-night, Guleesh?'

" ' I am,' he said.

'' And with that we set off, and we overtook
the wind that was before us, and the wind that
was behind us did not overtake us. And we
never stopped till we came to the sea. Then
every one of us said : ' Hie over cap ! Hie over
cap ! ' and Guleesh said it after us, and the next
second we was all up in the air, and we never
stopped till we was in Rome. And why the
whole tribe wanted to go by the way of Rome,
never a know I know, for it's not on the way
from Ireland to the palace of the King of France
at all.

'' Then I spoke up to Guleesh and says I : ' Do
you know why we brought you here? ' says I.

The Cleverness of Mortals 95

* The daughter of the King of France is to be
married this night, and we mean to carry her
off, and we need you so that she can sit behind
you on the horse, for you are flesh and blood
and she'll have something to hold to. Will you
do that for us now? '

'' ' ril do whatever you say,' says Guleesh;
' and where are we now, if you please? '

" ' We're in Rome,' says I.

" ' Oh, in Rome is it? ' says Guleesh. ' Sure,
then, I'm glad of that. The priest of our parish
lost his place a little while ago, only because they
said he drank too much, as if there'ld be any
harm in that, and now is the fine time to go to
the Pope and get a bull to put him back in his
place.'

'' ' Ah, wx've no time for that, Guleesh,' says
I, ' and we must be gettin' to the palace of the
King of France before we lose any more.'

" ' Not a foot will I go,' says Guleesh, ' till I
get the bull for the priest. You can go on and
leave me here if you like, and you can stop for
me when you come back.'

" Well, we had more talk about it, and then
one of the others says : ' Sure, Naggeneen, we
can't go without him and we can't get him to
come with us, so we'll have to try to get the
Pope's bull for him. Go with him to the Pope
and help him all you can, and we'll wait for
you.*

g6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" ' Come with me, then,' says I, and I took him
by the hand, and before he knew how I did it, I
had him in the room wdiere the Pope was. The
Pope was sitting by himself, reading a book, and
he had a tumbler of hot whiskey, with a little bit
of sugar, beside him on the table, all as com-
fortable as you please. ' Now, Guleesh,' says I,
' ask him for the bull, and tell him that if he
won't give it to you, you'll set the house on fire.
Then leave the rest to me.'

" So Guleesh walked up to him as bold as you
please, and when the Pope saw him he was near
scared to death, because he thought that nobody
could get into the room where he was. Then
Guleesh says to him : ' Don't be afraid, Your
Honor; all I want of you is your bull to put our
parish priest back in his place, that lost it some
time ago, because somebody told lies about him
and said that he drank too much. And when
I have your bull FU be leavin' you in peace
again.'

" * Go on out o' this,' says the Pope; ' where
are all my servants? ' and he began calling for
them, but Guleesh put his back against the door,
so that nobody could open it on the other side,
and then he began telling the Pope all about the
priest, and the Pope had nothing to do but listen.

" And when he was done the Pope refused up
and down to give him any pardon for the priest.

The Cleverness of Mortals 97

' Then,' says Guleesh, ' unless you give it to me
at once I'll burn your house.' And with that I
began blowing fire out of my mouth all around
the room.

" ' Oh, stop the fire,' cries the Pope, ' and I'll
give you the pardon or anything else you ask ! '

" So then I stopped the fire, and the Pope sat
down and wrote the pardon for the priest, giving
him back his old place, and gave it to Guleesh.
That second I caught him by the hand and we
were off again through the keyhole to where the
other fairies were. In another minute we were
all on our horses and away again. We overtook
the wind that was before us, and the wind that
was behind us did not overtake us till we were
at the palace of the King of France. And there
my fine boy Guleesh saw sights that he never
saw the like of before.

" The place was almost as fine as this of yours
here. There were long tables all about it, with
everything on them that a body would be
wanting to eat and drink, and as fast as any of it
was eaten or drunk, there was more put in its
place. Then there were hundreds of noblemen
and ladies, all in clothes of silk and velvet and
gold and silver, and all covered with jewels, till
they shone in the light of the gold chandeliers,
almost like they'd been chandeliers themselves.
And they were talking and laughing and singing

98 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

and playing, and some of them were dancing —
not so well as we dance, of course, when we've
a mind, but enough to make Guleesh think he
was seeing the grandest sight that ever was in
the world entirely. And up at one end of the hall
was an altar and two bishops, ready to marry the
Princess to the King's son as soon as it would
be the right time.

" ' And which of them all is the Princess? ' says
Guleesh to me.

" ' That one there near to ye,' says I, pointing
her out."

Naggeneen stopped in his story and seemed to
forget for a moment that he was telling it. '' Oh,
but she was the beauty of the world ! " he went
on, speaking so low that the fairies could
scarcely hear him. " There was the lily and the
rose in her cheeks, and her arms like snow, and
her hair like soft gold. Not like the gold that
you dig out of the ground for your palace, but
gold with life in it. And her eyes were like two
big violets with the dew on them. And there
stood the others all around her, all merry and
happy, and she

" ' What is she crying for? ' says Guleesh to
me. * Sure it's not right that eyes like those
would have tears in them.'

" ' True for you, it's not, Guleesh,' said I, ' and
it's because there's no love in her heart for the

The Cleverness of Mortals 99

man that she's to be married to. It's her father
that's compelling her, for he has some arrange-
ment of the sort with the other King, that's the
father of the young man. And it's for that,' I
said, ' that we're going to carry her off, and it's
the best thing we could be doing for her as well
as ourselves.'

'' Just that minute the young Prince came and
offered her his hand, and away they went in the
dance, and the tears in her eyes all the time.
And as soon as the dance was over, the King,
her father, and the Queen, her mother, came and
said that it was time they were married, and the
two bishops waiting there all the time. So they
led the Prince and the Princess up toward the
altar, and she with the rose all gone out of her
cheeks and only the lily left. But when they were
not more than four yards from the altar I put out
my foot before the Princess, and she fell, and
then, with a word of a charm, I made her
invisible to all but Guleesh and ourselves. Then
I made a sign to Guleesh, and he took up the
Princess and ran with her out of the hall, and all
the rest of us after them. ' My horse and bridle
and saddle ! ' says every one of us, and the same
says Guleesh. He lifted the Princess up behind
him on his horse and we were away again. We
overtook the wind that was before us, and the
wind that was behind us did not overtake us till

c^n^PiiM

lOO Fairies and Folk of Ireland

we came to the sea. ' Hie over cap ! ' cried every
one of us, and ' Hie over cap ! ' cried Guleesh,
and in a moment we were in Ireland again.

'' Another minute and we were close to our
own rath, and it was then that all the work of the
night was lost. For then what did the fool
Guleesh do but take the Princess in his arms and
leap down off his horse, and he cried : ' I call you

to myself, in the name of ' Oh, now, you

little cowards, you've no call to shrink away like
that and to try to be hiding in the dark corners !
You know I can't say the name that he said. But
he said it, and then the enchantment was all gone,
and he saw that the horse he'd been riding was
nothing but the beam of a plough and that the
horse that each of the others had was only an
old broom, or maybe a rag weed, or the like of
that.

" And you know that there was no getting the
Princess away from him after the words that
he said. But I came close to her and struck her
on the mouth. ' Now, Guleesh,' said I, ^ you
may keep her if you will, but she'll be dumb
forever.' And with that we all disappeared from
them.

" But you may be sure I watched them. They
stood there together and Guleesh talked to her
and tried to make her talk back, but it was of no
use at all, and he soon found that she was dumb

The Cleverness of Mortals loi

completely. Then he stood thinking what would
he do with her, and at last he took her by the
hand and started toward the priest's house. It
was getting near day now, and the priest was up
by the time they came to the door, and he opened
it himself. And when he saw Guleesh and the
girl, sure he thought they were come to be mar-
ried, and he said : ' Ah, Guleesh, isn't it the nice
boy ye are, that ye can't wait till a decent hour to
be married, but ye must be comin' to me this
early? And don't ye know I can't marry ye
lawfully anyway, and I put out of my place? '

'' Then says Guleesh : ' Sure, father, you can
marry me or anybody else you like, for you have
your place back again, and here's the Pope's bull
for that same. But it's not that I come for, but
to ask you to give shelter to this young lady, the
daughter of the King of France.'

" And with that he takes the Pope's bull out
of his pocket and gives it to the priest, and the
priest looked at the writing and the seal and saw
that there was no doubt but it was right. And
so he made Guleesh and the Princess come in
and sit down, while Guleesh told him the whole
story, and not a word of it would he have believed
only there was the Pope's bull that he couldn't
deny, and so at long last he had to believe all that
Guleesh told him. And the end of it was that
the Princess stayed at the priest's house, for they

I02 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

didn't know how to send her back to her father's
palace, and they had no money, and she couldn't
speak to help them. And the priest gave out
that she was the daughter of his brother, that
lived in another county, and that she was mak-
ing him a visit. And Guleesh went home and
said how he'd been sleeping beside the rath all
night."

Naggeneen paused in his story, while all the
fairies drew quietly closer to him. '' Do you
see," he said, '' how I was tricked by a fool of a
mortal? Oh, she was the beauty of the world,
and he took her from me with a word, as easily
as you'ld steal the butter out of a churn. And
that was not all.

" I said to myself that I was not done with my
revenge on them yet. She could not speak and
it was a sore punishment on the both of them.
Yet she stayed on at the priest's house. The
priest wrote letters to her father, as I heard, and
gave them to merchants who were travelling,
but none of them ever reached him. And
Guleesh got mighty serious about his soul all at
once, so that he had to be at the priest's house
every day, and every day he saw the Princess.
She could never talk to him, but she learned to
make signs that he could understand. And so
it went on for a year.

'' And then, when it was November Eve ao^ain,

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR. LENOX AND
TlLOEN FOUNnATIONS.

The Cleverness of Mortals 103

and we had been out of the rath and were all
coming into it again in a great crowd, there sat
Guleesh, the same as before. He couldn't see
us, but he must have heard us, for you could see
that he was listening with all his ears. And I
thought now was the fine time to be having the
laugh on him. By that time everybody was
shouting : ' My horse and bridle and saddle !
My horse and bridle and saddle ! ' and Guleesh
shouted as before : ' My horse and bridle and
saddle ! My horse and bridle and saddle ! '

" ' Now is my chance to be even with him,'
thought I, and I said: ' Ah, Guleesh, my boy, is
that yourself that's to the fore again? You'll
get no horse to-night and you'll play no more
tricks on us. How are you getting on with your
Princess? Does she talk to you much? Or do
you just like to sit and look at her? '

" And when I said that, he looked so pale and
so sad that I almost screamed with joy, and I
couldn't keep myself from whispering to the man
that was next to me : ' And isn't he the stupid
omadhaun, not to know that there's an herb
growing close to his own door that would give
her back her speech if he'd only boil it and give
it to her? '

" ' It's the stupid omadhaun he is,' said the
other man.

'' Oh, and it was me that was the omadhaun,

I04 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

to be saying it at all. Oh, why couldn't I hold
my jaw? But it was Hke some spell was on me,
and I had to say it. I had to say it ! I couldn't
have kept it back if I'd tried. And he heard
every word !

" It's little more there is to tell. The next
morning, as soon as there was light, there was
Guleesh searching for any herb that was strange
to him around the door. And it was not long
till he found it. Then he boiled it, and he drank
some of it himself, to see whether it might be
poison, and it put him into a deep sleep. And
when he woke he went to the priest's house and
told the whole story and gave the Princess some
of the drink, and then she went to sleep and did
not wake till the next day. And when she woke
she had her speech back.

" Ah, well, by this time they was both in love
with each other, and all that I did for myself
or against them had only helped them. But it
was not long before the Princess was saying that
she must be ofif to her father, and nothing that
the priest and Guleesh could do would make her
stay. So the priest took the jewels that she had
on her when Guleesh first brought her, and he
sold them and gave her the money, and she took
it and paid her way back to France.

" And after that great grief and melancholy
came over Guleesh, and nothing would do him

The Cleverness of Mortals 105

but he must start off for France to find the
Princess again. Start off he did, and that was
the last that I ever saw of him, only I heard that
he found the Princess at her father's court and
that at long last they were married."

There was nothing strange in the last that
Naggeneen had told — nothing more strange, I
mean, than that a peasant boy should marry the
daughter of the King of France — but his voice,
before he had ended, was so low and so full of
grief that all the other fairies kept very still to
listen, and when he had told his story none of
them spoke for a little while. At last the King
said : '' How long was all this ago, Nagge-
neen? "

" Many years," Naggeneen answered; " I
couldn't be counting how many."

" Then what is it to you now? " said the King.
" Sure they're both dead long ago, and here are
you as sound as ever."

" Yes," Naggeneen cried, " as sound as ever
and as sound as Fll ever be. They're not dead.
They had souls. They're alive now, and when
what they call ' the Last Day ' comes, they'll live
still, forever. And then I shall go out, like a
shadow when the light falls on it. There's no
more of me that can last than a shadow. And
you will go out that way, too, and all of us. It
was not her that I wanted so much. It was the

io6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

soul that I thought Fid get, and her married to
me. That was it. And a stupid mortal had
tricked me twice. It was then I left the rath.
It was then I could bear to look at nobody, man
or fairy. Then I put on the red jacket and went
by myself. After a time I was a lepracaun, and a
cluricaun, and nothing at all, as it suited me, and
sometimes I lived in a rath with others, as I have
in yours, and other times I went by myself. But
I never forgot how I was tricked by a mortal,
and I've never forgot how I missed getting a
soul when I was near to it.

" YouVe never liked me; you've always
thought me sour and harsh and cruel. Do you
see why now? Since that time I've always hated
all men, because of the one that tricked me; and
I've always hated all women, because of the one
I lost; and I've always hated all fairies, because
they are all as weak and helpless and pitiful as
myself. I hate myself and I hate all of you,
because there's no good for any of us in all the
world forever."

" Naggeneen," said the King, '' we've never
been too fond of you, it's true, but maybe we'ld
have liked you better if you'd told us this before.
But you're cleverer than all of us. Tell us what
we'll do now, so that these mortals won't be
getting the better of us all out."

" What'll you do?" Naggeneen answered;

The Cleverness of Mortals 107

'' there's nothing you can do. They'll outwit
you, whatever you do."

" But there must be some way. Tell us what
to do, Naggeneen," the King pleaded.

" I'll tell you what to do, then," said Nagge-
neen; '' send out your people and let them learn
the ways of men. Let them learn to make the
iron coaches that go up in the air; let them learn
to make the coaches that go on the ground, with
the iron ropes; let them learn to talk miles away
through iron strings; let them learn to make the
bright lights that you see; let them learn to open
the rock so that it wall not close again; let them
learn to cross running water in boats full of iron;
let them learn to handle iron and do what they
like with it, as if it were only gold, and then,
maybe, they'll be able to do all the things that
men do."

The fairies were simply cowering away from
the King and Naggeneen and shivering and
squealing with fright at the talk of handling
iron and crossing running water. " Ah, Nagge-
neen," said the King, " you know we can't do
all that. Tell us what we'll do at all."

" There's nothing that you can do," said Nag-
geneen. " There's only one thing I know you
can try, and I think that'll do no good either."

'' But what is it? " said the King. " We'll try
it, anyway."

io8 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

'' It's not the time to try it yet," Naggeneen
answered. " When the time comes I'll tell you."

'' Then, Naggeneen," said the King, '' give us
a tune out of the fiddle."

And Naggeneen took the fiddle and played.
But there was no merriment in it now. It was
only the breath of sorrow and loss and disap-
pointment that breathed from the shivering
strings. The fairies did not dance; they only
stood and Hstened, pale and still. In a few
moments the King gave the sign for Naggeneen
to stop, and in a minute more the lights were out
and the whole palace was as quiet as the hill,
before any palace was there.

THE TIME FOR NAGGENEEN'S PLAN

Little happened that needs to be told in the
next few months, either to the fairies or to the
human people. John O'Brien and Peter Sul-
livan were not long in finding work to do, and
they were paid for it, and the two families got on
better than they had in Ireland. The O'Briens
got on better than the SuUivans. John was a
better workman than Peter. Peter could do the
work that was set before him in the way that he
was told. But John could do better than that.
He could see for himself how the work ought to
be done, and he saw that if he did it well he
might get better work to do. In Ireland, work
as he would, he could no more than live, and so
he had come to care little what he did or how he
did it. But it was different here. The men who
employed him saw that he was not a common
workman, and soon they gave him better than
109

no Fairies and Folk of Ireland

the common work and more than the common

pay-
But Peter was a common workman. Then,
too, John's mother knew how to care for the
house better than Ellen did, and because of that,
too, the O'Briens did better. Every day, just as
she used to do in Ireland, Mrs. O'Brien left
something to eat and drink outside the house for
the Good People. She said that she did not
know whether there were any Good People here,
but if there were they must be well treated. And
when she found that what she left for them was
taken, she said that she knew that there were
Good People here. Of course she did not know
that they were the same ones who had lived near
them in Ireland. She put the milk and the water
and the bread, or whatever she had for them, on
the fire-escape, at the back of the rooms where
they lived. And first she always laid down a little
piece of carpet to put the dishes on, so that the
fairies could come and get the food without
touching the iron, for she knew that they could
never do that. There was only one thing that
did not go well with the O'Briens. Kitty's
health did not come back to her, as they had
hoped that it would. She did not need to do any
work now, though she would do some, and the
rest was good for her, but she was still pale and
still weak.

The Thne for Naggeneen s Plan 1 1 1

Though the Sullivans did not find their
fortunes so much improved in the new country
as the O'Briens did, yet they felt that they had
gained, too, and in one way especially. For the
King of the fairies had forbidden Naggeneen to
trouble them any more. Naggeneen asked what
for at all he had come over all the sea, if he was
not to trouble the Sullivans. The King was
always ready enough to have Naggeneen's help,
when he thought that his cleverness would be
of use; but there were times when he would be
obeyed, and this was one of them, so Naggeneen
had to do as he was told.

The King tried all the things that Naggeneen
had told him to do, to make his people learn all
the wonderful magic that the human people
knew so well. Naggeneen had told him at first
that it would all be of no use, and so the King
found it. The fairies were sent out to watch the
men, to see all that they did, and to learn how
to do it. It was all in vain.

The King often asked Naggeneen what was
the one other way that he had said they might
try. Naggeneen would never tell. When the
time came to try it, he said, he would tell what
it was, but it would be of no more use than the
rest that they had done. Naggeneen laughed
at all the others when they came home baffled
and out of sorts. " You'll never do the things

112 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

that men do," he said, " any more than they'll
ever do the things that you do. And their
wonders are more and better than yours."

After a time they ceased to try to learn any
more. They began to live much as they had
lived in Ireland. They had found a green place
where they could dance, near the palace, but it
was winter now, and the snow was over every-
thing much of the time. They went to the
O'Briens every day for the food that was left
outside the window for them, and, for the most
part, they spent the rest of the time in the palace.
Often Naggeneen played the fiddle or the pipes
for them. Then they forgot that it was his fault
that they had ever come here, but when he
stopped playing they remembered it and hated
him again. And Naggeneen laughed at them.
He had a strange laugh, without a bit of merri-
ment or good-humor in it. There was something
sad in his laugh and something sour, but nothing
that it was pleasant to hear.

Then the spring began to come. The grass
was looking a bit green and the air was warmer.
They could dance on the grass now, whenever
they liked. They had given up trying to learn
the ways of men, and they were beginning to feel
as if they had always lived here. Then Nagge-
neen came one evening and stood before the
King and said : " It is the time now to try

The Time for Naggeneens Plan 1 1 3

my plan, if you want to try it, but it's no
good."

''What's the plan, then, at all?" the King
asked.

" You know well," said Naggeneen, " that
your people can find out nothing by going out
and watching what men do. Now, what you
want is to get a human child here, or maybe two
of them, and keep them and let them grow up
with you here, and then send them out to learn
everything that men do, and come back and
teach it to your people. Then you'll learn all
these things that men do, and you can do the
like."

*' Ah, Naggeneen," said the King, " it's your-
self was always the clever boy. We'll do that
same."

" You will so," Naggeneen replied, " and no
good will it ever do you. I've told you before
and I tell you again, you'll never do the things
that men do. But it's crazy you are to try all
ways, and I have to be telling you the ways to
try. Go on and do it, if it divarts you."

'' And where'll we get the human child at all? "
the Queen asked.

" Sure then," said Naggeneen, '' and haven't
you heard the news? Why, there's a baby at the
Sullivans' since this morning, and one at the
O'Briens' since this afternoon. The one at the

114 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Sullivans' is a boy and the one at the O'Briens'
is a giri. Go and get them and leave two of your
own people in their places. You know how to
do that; it's nothing new to you."

" Take a child from the O'Briens ! " the Queen
cried. " From them that's always been so good
to us and always given us the bit and sup, when
they scarcely had it themselves? I'd never do
such a thing."

'' But you'ld be leaving one of your own people
in the place of it," Naggeneen answered, '' and
they'ld never know the differ. Or if they did, it
would be no matter. A woman makes a great
hullabaloo when her child looks sick and she
thinks it's dying on her, but she doesn't care at
all after a little. And then, it doesn't die, and
she thinks it's her own child all the time, and
there's no harm done. And His Majesty here
thinks it's going to do a power of good for all of
you. It's not, but he thinks it is."

" We'll never take a child from the O'Briens
if I can help it," the Queen said. " From
the Sullivans I don't care, but not from the
O'Briens."

" We'll have to do it," said the King. " I
don't like to hurt the O'Briens myself, but it's
for the good of us all, and it's our only chance.
These mortals are getting ahead of us that far,
and they'll be doing something next that will

The Tmte for Naggeneen s Plan 1 1 5

exterminate us entirely. We'll send and get
both the children."

The Queen urged again that the O'Briens had
always been good to the Good People and must
not be harmed, but the King had his mind set on
Naggeneen's plan and he would hear of nothing
else. It was settled and it could not be changed.
They must have both children. They should
live among the fairies till they were old enough
to be sent out to learn the ways of men. And
they should always come back and teach the
fairies the ways of men that they had learned.

" And it's to-night we'd better be doing it, if
we're to do it at all," said the King. " Now,
who'll be the ones to go and be put in the place
of the children? "

Nobody seemed to care about going to play
the part of a baby with the Sullivans, or even
with the O'Briens. Everybody was trying to
get out of the King's sight behind the others.
" We'ld have to be lyin' still all day," one whis-
pered, " with never a dance to rest ourselves
with."

" They might be puttin' holy water on us,"
said another, and all who heard him shiv-
ered.

" There'll be all sorts of unpleasantness, any-
way," said a third.

" Maybe they'ld find us out," said a fourth,

1 1 6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" and then they'ld be puttin' all sorts of horrible
charms on us to be rid of us."

But the King called one of the women and
told her that she must go and stay in the place
of the baby at the O'Briens. She whimpered
a little, but she knew that what the King said
must be done. Then the King looked around
him and said, '' Where's Naggeneen got to at
all now?"

" Here I am to the fore," said Naggeneen.

" You'll go," said the King, '' and you'll be
put in the place of the boy that's at the Sul-
livans."

"I go ! " said Naggeneen. " Never a step.
Didn't I tell you of the plan? And that's
enough. Now do it for yourself. I don't
belong to you and you know it. Do your own
work."

" I'll not be disputin' with you," said the
King. '' Whether you belong to me or no,
you're in my palace along with my tribe, and
you'll do what I tell you. It's tired of you I've
been this great while, and now I've a chance to
be rid of you. You'll go to the Sullivans and
you'll stay there and you'll grow up like their
child. And mind you play your part well and
don't let them know what you are. If you
do, they'll work some charm on you and be
rid of you, and then we'll have to send back

The Time for Naggeneeji s Plan 117

the real child, and all your own plan will be
lost."

" And how will you carry out my plan without
me?" Naggeneen asked. "Don't I always tell
you what to do? You'll want me a dozen times
a day."

'' We'll not want you at all. You do tell us
what to do and we do it when we like, and it's
small good ever came of it. And then, if we
do want anything of you, we know where to find
you, and we'll easily come to you. It's been done
before. You was left in the place of a young
man that was taken away once before, and when
the tribe that you was with then wanted to talk
to you they came to you, and we can do the
same if we like, but I don't think w-e shall like."

"That's just it," Naggeneen cried; "did you
know about that time? This time would be
just like it. Do you know how they drove me
ofT? I couldn't help it then and I couldn't help
it again. There's times when it seems like
there's a charm on me, and so there is, belike,
and I have to do a thing that it's bad for me to
do. Do you know the w^hole of it, how it was
that time?

" It was a man that time, as you say, and not
a child. Rickard the Rake he was called, I
remember, and a fine rake he was. Never a bit
of work would he do, but he'ld always be at

1 1 8 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

every fair or wake or the like of that. And so
little good there was in him that the fairies in
the rath where I was then said : ' It's an easy
thing it'll be stealing him away, and serve him
right, too, and he'll be handy for us, he's so good
a dancer.'

" I was ordered to be the one to be left in his
place, though I knew no good would come of it.
And so one night, when he was dancing, we
struck him with a dart in the hip, and he fell down
where he was. And then, in all the bother and
the noise that there was, it was easy to get him
away and to leave me in the place of him. So
they took me up and put me in bed and nursed
me and did all they could think of for me, and
me all the time squirming and squealing, like it
was dying I was.

" They gave me everything I could think of
to eat, and that was not so bad, for I never lived
better in my life; but it was worn out I was get-
ting, with lying there all the time and playing
sick, and never a chance to stir about or get any
air or a minute to myself. And the thing I was
spoiling for was a tune out of the pipes or the
fiddle. Then they brought a fairy-man to look
at me, and he said it was a fairy and not Rickard
at all that was in it, and I couldn't be telling you
all the bad names he put on me and the things
he said about me. And he said : ' Leave a

The Time for Naggeneen s Plan 1 1 9

pair of bagpipes near him, and maybe he'll play
them. You know well Rickard never could
play at all, and so if he plays them we'll know
that it's not Rickard, but a fairy changeHng, and
then we'll know what to do.' "

Just here I must stop Naggeneen in his story
for a minute, to tell you that when people in
Ireland speak of a " fairy-man " they do not
mean a man fairy. They mean a man who
knows all about fairies. The fairy-men know
all that the faires can do, and they know the
charms against them and the ways to cure a
sickness that the fairies have brought upon any-
one, and the ways to keep them from stealing
the cream from the milk and the milk from the
cow. So the people have great respect for a
fairy-man or a fairy-woman, and they often send
to one of them for help, when they think that
the fairies may have done them a mischief.

" They left the pipes beside me," Naggeneen
went on, " and then they went away. Oh, it
was then I had the terrible time all out. Oh,
may I never long for anything again as I longed
to play them pipes ! But I knew that they'ld
be listening and watching, and if they caught
me at it, I'M have to pay for it, if they could
make me. So I kept my hands off them and
only groaned and took on as if the dart in my
hip was killing me entirely.

I20 Fairies a7id Folk of Ireland

" Then there was one hot afternoon, and every-
thing was still about the house, and it was the
harvest time, and they all had a right to be in
the fields at work. And sure I thought it w^as
there they were. And then the wish to play the
pipes came on me worse than ever before. And
it was then that it was like there was a charm
on me, as I was telling you. I had to do what
I did. I could no more help doing it than a girl
can help dancing with us, when we get her in
our ring on May Eve. But first I opened the
door a crack and looked out into the kitchen, to
see was there anybody there, and there was
nobody. But they were all in another room, as
I found out after, waiting and listening. There
was the fairy-man and a fairy-woman and all the
people of the house, and some of the neighbors.

" But if I'd seen them all I dunno if I could
have done other than I did, the power, w^hat-
ever it was, was on me that strong. And I took
the pipes and played. It was soft I played at
first, and then the music got the better of me
and I went on more and louder, and I played
tunes and tunes. I could play as well then as
I can now, and so the other fairies, that had been
without me for some time, must have heard me
playing, for soon I heard the rustle and the
whisper and the patter of their coming, and
then they gathered round me, and I had been

The Time for Naggeneen s Plan 1 2 1

left there lonely for so long that I kept on play-
ing, to keep them with me.

" It was then the fairy-man and the fairy-
woman began talking, and I heard every word
they said, as no doubt they meant I should.
' What'll we do with the little beast at all? ' says
she.

" ' We'll do something that's not too unpleas-
ant at first,' says he. ' We'll take him and hold
his head under the water, and see will that drive
any of the devilment out of him.'

" ' Oh, the thief ! ' says she. ' That's not the
way to treat him at all. Let's heat the shovel
and put him on it and throw him out the
window.'

*' ' Ah, why will you be that cruel? ' says he.
' Just let me heat the tongs red hot in the fire
and then I'll catch him by the nose with them,
and we'll find out will that make him go home
and send poor Rickard back to us.'

'' ' That's not enough,' says she. ' I'll go and
bring some of the juice of the lussmore that I
have, and we'll make him drink it, and then if
he's a fairy he'll wish that he was a man, so that
he could die, it'll make that consternation inside
him.'

'' ' We'll do the both of them things,' says he,
and with that they both started into the kitchen,
and all the rest of the people after them. But

122 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

you may believe that by that time I was not
there at all. I'd had enough of their kindness
and I didn't think it was right to wait for any
more of it. But I looked in at the window for
a last glimpse of them, and one of the women
saw me, and she screamed, amd then the fairy-
man made after me w^ith the tongs, and I had
to vanish completely. And you know what
would happen then. When they drove me off,
of course wx had to send back Rickard, and
there they found him the next morning, asleep
in his bed, as sound as ever he was in his life.

'' And that was not all. The lesson that he'd
had was enough for him, and he left drinking
and fighting and swearing, and he helped his
old father and his brothers on the farm, and he
was another man altogether. And so it's as I
told you. You can never get the better of men,
if they know anything, and all you do to hurt
them only helps them. And so it will be if you
send me to the Sullivans."

" If you're done talking about it now," said
the King, '' you'll go to the Sullivans and stay
in the place of the child that we're to carry of¥.
It's not likely they'll be leaving any pipes or any
fiddle about for you to play on, and you can stay
there quite comfortable.

" Of¥ with him now ! " the King cried to a
dozen of his men, " and mind you don't come

The Time for Naggeneens Plan 123

back without the child. And the same to you,"
he said again to others of his men; ''take the
woman and leave her in the place of the child
at the O'Briens'."

The two parties were off, like two little
swarms of bees, the one with Naggeneen and
the other with the woman. The rest of the
fairies waited. The Queen sat on her throne,
with her face turned away from the rest and
hidden in her hands. The King, with a troubled
face, sat looking straight before him, not moving
an eye or a hand. The others stood as far off as
they could go. Nobody played; nobody danced;
nobody laughed or w^hispered. They waited
and watched and listened. Then there was a
little murmur and buzz of one of the parties
coming back. It was the one that had been to
the Sullivans.

The King looked up and seemed to look
through the fairies without seeing them.
'' Have you the child with you? " he asked.

" We have," said the leader.

"And where's Naggeneen? " the King asked.

" Lying in the bed beside Mrs. Sullivan," the
leader answered, " and squealing like a pig
under a gate."

'' Give the child something to eat and make
him comfortable," said the King.

The Queen turned suddenly around. " Don't

124 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

give him anything- to eat yet," she said.
'* We've nothing here but our own food. You
couldn't give him that. What did you bring
him here for? Was it not so that you could
send him out again, as he grow-s up, to learn to
do the things that men do? And if he touched
a bit of our food or our drink, you know he
could never leave us."

" That's the true word," said the King.
" Here! Some of you go to the O'Briens' and
see is there any milk left out of the window.
And bring back enough so there'll be some for
the other child, when we get her."

As the fairies set off on this errand there
came a sound like the whistling of the wind
through the door, and those who had gone to
bring the O'Briens' child were back. They
were back in a whirl and a rush and a scramble
and a rout. They were all screaming and cry-
ing and whimpering and gabbling and gibbering
together, and they all fell and sprawled together
in a heap before the King. In the midst of
them was the woman who had been sent to take
the place of the O'Briens' child.

"What for are you here without the child?"
the King cried. " And what are you all doing
there on the floor, like fish tumbled out of a
basket? Get up and tell me what's wrong with
you! Where is the child?"

The Time for Naggeneens Plan 125

The fairies all choked and gasped and groaned
and tried to speak. Then the leader of the
party staggered up to his feet and stammered
out : " The child is where it was before we
went for it. We could not bring it; we could
not take it; w'e could not touch it. You might
as well be asking us to bring a lily from the fields
of heaven."

" And why could you not take it? " the King
asked. '' Was the mother holding it so fast in
her arms? Could you not make her look the
other way while you'ld be taking it? Could
you not put some charm on her so that she'ld let
it go? Or was she praying all the time, so that
you could do nothing with her? Or was she
making those signs over it that none of us can
stand?"

'' No, no," said the leader, so low that they
could scarcely hear him; " no, it wasn't that; the
mother was doing none of them things. The
mother was dead ! "

For a minute everybody was still. The
Queen started and looked at the leader of the
party and leaned toward him. All the others
gazed at him too. Then the King said,
" And why did you not bring the child? "

'' I'm after telling you we couldn't touch the
child," the leader answered. '' I went to take
it, and all at once I felt burning hot, and like I

1 26 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

was all dried up into a cinder, and I think they
must have drawn a circle of fire round the child.
And then I had that fearful feeling that you
have when you're near a horseshoe nail. There
must have been one somewhere about. You
couldn't mistake that feeling — as if needles of
ice were going all through and through you.
And so I was driven back and could get no
nearer to the child."

The woman who had been sent to take the
place of the child was standing near the King
now, though she could scarcely stand at all, and
her face was all wet with tears. '' But they
made me go nearer to the child than that," she
cried. " These others pushed me close to her,
so that rid take her place and give the child to
them. And I felt burned up Kke a cinder, too,
and then I felt the icy needles, and then worse
than that. I felt as if I was all cut across and
across and through and through with flaming
swords, and torn with red-hot saws. Not the
way it is when you divide yourself, so that you
can be in two places at once. Anybody can do
that, and it hurts no more than cutting a lock
of hair, but this was — oh ! there's only one
thing could do this. There was a pair of open
scissors lying close to the child, and I almost
touched them ! "

She could sav no more, and there was no more

The Time for Naggenee^is Plan 127

to be said. " You couldn't get the child, then,"
said the King, " and there's the end of it.
Nobody could, if they did all them things. I
dunno how it is," the King went on, half to him-
self, " a child lies there with a pair of scis'sors
open near by, and a horseshoe nail close to it —
maybe hung around its neck — and a circle
drawn around it with a coal of fire, and it never
minds it at all. It sleeps and wakes and lies
there as peaceful and happy and quiet as if there
was nothing at all out of the common about it.
I dunno how they can do it. They're queer
people, these mortals. We can't get the girl.
They was too clever for us. But we've got the
boy, and we'll do the best we can with him."

VI

LITTLE KATHLEEN AND LITTLE TERENCE

The next morning John O'Brien was sitting
alone, when there was a knock at the door.
Then Peter Sullivan opened it, said " God save
all here ! " and came in.

'' God save you kindly! " John answered.

" It's distressed we are," said Peter, " to hear
of the death of poor Kitty. Ellen would be here
with me to tell you so, only bein' in bed herself
and not able to stir, and what'll come to all of us
I dunno. I'm that disturbed about her I dunno
what I'll do at all. I left her with one of the
neighbors and came to see your mother about
her. But sure it's you has the great grief on
you already, whatever comes to us. It's not
only you I'm thinkin' of, but it's the child, left
with no mother. Oh, it's a terrible thing."

'' My own mother can bring up any child,"
128

Little Kathleen and Little Terence 129

John answered. " Have no fear of that. It's us
that knew Kitty that'll feel the loss of her."

" And how is the child doing, anyway? " Peter
asked.

" She looks fine and healthy, glory be to
God ! " said John.

" It's a girl, they tell me."

" It is."

" Do you know yet what you'll call her? "

'' We'll name her Kathleen, after her mother,"
said John.

"Then you'll be calhng her Kitty, like her
mother, I suppose."

" No — no," John answered, slowly; " I don't
think I'll call her that. The child will be always
Kathleen. I dunno if I can tell you how I feel
about that. It was a name for a child, more
than a woman — Kitty — and yet, now that she's
gone from me, I've a feeling like it was some-
thing more than the name of a woman — like it
was something holy, like the name of the blessed
Mother of God. When I think of that name
now, I want to think only of her, and I wouldn't
like to be calling even her own child by it. It's
Kathleen I'll call her — nothing else."

" You're right about all that, no doubt," said
Peter; '' but I can't be staying here, and Ellen
and the child at home the way they are. You
have your child left, and you say it's healthy —

130 Fairies and Folk of F'eland

thank God for that same! — but it looks Hke I
might have neither wife nor child."

" Don't say that, man alive," said John;
" v^hat's the matter at all then? "

" I can't stop discoursin' here," Peter an-
sw^ered. " I came to ask v^ould your mother,
being a knowledgable woman, step over for a
bit and see can she tell at all what's the matter
with Ellen and the child. There was a doctor
there, but he seemed to do no good, and Ellen
said your mother would know more than all
the doctors, so I came to ask would she come.
And if you care to come yourself, I'll be telling
you how they are as we go along, but I can't
stay here; it's too long to be away from them."

''Mother is with the child," said John; "I'll
speak to her."

He went into another room, where the baby
was sleeping and his mother was sitting beside
her. He told her w^hy Peter had come. " Step
downstairs," said Mrs. O'Brien, " and ask Mrs.
Mulvey will she sit by the baby till I'm back.
Then I'll go with him. And you'd better come,
too, John; the air will do you good."

John went down to another of the tenements
in the house and came back with their neighbor,
Mrs. Mulvey. " If you'll be so kind," Mrs.
O'Brien said, '' sit here by the baby till I'm back,
and I'll not be long. And mind you keep every-

Little Kathlee7i and Little Terence 131

thing as it is, unless she wakes, and then you'll
know what to do as well as I, for you've children
of your own. But don't disturb the pair of scis-
sors that's there beside her, and don't take off
the horseshoe nail that's hung round her neck."

" And what's them things for? " Mrs. Mulvey
asked, with wonder in her eyes.

" Why, to keep the Good People from steaHng
the child," Mrs. O'Brien answered. '' Did you
never hear of those things? Don't you know
the Good People can't stand the touch of iron,
or even to be near it? And especially a horse-
shoe nail they can't stand. And the scissors, too,
they couldn't come near, and then leaving them
open they make a cross, and that keeps the child
all the more from the Good People."

John and his mother left Mrs. Mulvey with
little Kathleen and went with Peter. " And
what's wTong with Ellen, then? " Mrs. O'Brien
asked.

" I dunno that there's so much wrong with
herself, as you might say," Peter answered. " I
think it's more than anything else that she's
worried about the child."

" And what's wTong with the child, then? "

'' There's everything w-rong with the child,"
said Peter. " It's not like the same child at all.
Last night he was as healthy a boy as you'ld wish
to see — quiet and peaceable and good-tem-

132 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

pered and strong-looking, for his age. And
now this morning he's thin and sick-looking,
and there's black hair all over his arms, and his
face is wrinkled, like he was a little old man,
and he does nothing but cry and scream till you
can't bear it, and twist and squirm till you can't
hold him. It's like he was fairy-struck, only I
don't beHeve in them things at all."

*' Did you watch him close last night? " Mrs.
O'Brien asked.

'' Part of the time," Peter answered, " but I
dare say we was both asleep other times."

" Was Ellen careful about her prayers last
night, and were you so, too? "

'* I can't say about that," Peter said. '' We
might be letting some of them go, such a time as
that, you know, and make it up after."

'' Yes," said Mrs. O'Brien, " make it up after
by losing your child ! Was there any iron any-
where about him? "

" I don't know that there was."

'' And did you make a circle of fire about the
place where he was lying? "

" I did not."

" The child's not been struck," said Mrs.
O'Brien; '' not the way you mean. It's not your
child at all, but one of the Good People them-
selves, that's in it. They've stolen your child
and left a changeling in the place of it."

Little Kathleen and Little Terence 133

" It's the same way you always talked, Mrs.
O'Brien," said Peter. " I don't believe them
things."

They had come to Peter's door by this time.
They found Ellen lying in bed, looking fright-
ened half to death, and beside her was the baby,
or the fairy, or whatever it was. It was not cry-
ing loudly now, but it was keeping up a little
whining and whimpering noise that was quite as
unpleasant to listen to as a good, honest cry.
Its face looked thin and pinched and old; it had
a little thin, wispy hair on its head where no
baby of the age that this one was supposed to be
has a right to have any. Its arms and hands
were thin and bony. It looked weak and sick,
but it was rolling and wriggling about in the
liveliest way. It would give a spring as if it
were going straight off the bed upon the floor,
and when poor Ellen caught at it to save it, it
would roll back toward her, stop its crying for
a second, and seem to be laughing at her, and
then it would do the same thing again.

'' It's plain enough," Mrs. O'Brien said, as
soon as she saw it. '' It's one of the Good
People. But it's quick enough we'll be rid of
it and have back your own child. Bring me
some eggs."

" I'll have nothing of the sort now%" said Ellen.
'' It's bad the poor child is with some sickness

134 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

or other, but it's my own child, and I'll have
nothing done to it that's not to do it good. If
you know anything that'll help it, Mrs. O'Brien,
tell me that, but don't be sayin' it's not my
child."

" I'll not hurt the child, whatever it is," said
Mrs. O'Brien, " but there are ways to tell
whether it's your own child at all or one of the
Good People. If you find it's one of them, then
it's easy to do more, but in the meantime it's
not harmed."

" I'll not have you trying any of them things,"
said Ellen. " I'll not have you saying it's not
my child, and I'll not be thinking of such a thing
myself. You see how poor and sick it's looking.
If there's anything you can do for the child, do
it, but don't be talking that way any more."

" Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, '' you don't know
what you're talking about at all. Wait now till
I tell you what was told to me when I lived in
Dublin, and I think that it was not far from
there that it happened. It's about a woman
that talked as you do. A sailor's wife she was,
and there was a child born to her while her hus-
band was away at sea. She thought he'ld be
home soon, and so she wanted to put ofif the
christening of the child till he'ld be back. So
she waited and waited for a long time, and her
husband did not come. The neighbors told her

Little Kathleen and Little Terence 135

she was doing wrong to wait so long and she
ought to have the child christened before any-
thing would happen to it. But she wouldn't
listen to them.

*' So it went on for a year and a half, and still
the father didn't come home. But the boy was
healthy and happy, and the mother never had
any trouble with him. But the trouble came.
One day she'd been working in the field, and
she came home, and as soon as she was in the
house she heard crying from the bed where the
child used to sleep. She ran to look at him,
and he lay there, looking sick and thin and weak,
the way your boy does, and crying that he was
hungry. He was like her child and he was not
like him. He'd grown so pale and bad-looking
that she thought he'd had a stroke from the
Good People. But she went to get him some
bread and milk, and she asked her other boy,
that was about seven years old, when it was and
how it was that he began to be sick.

"" ' I left him playing near the fire,' the boy
said, ' and I was in the other room. And I heard
a rushing noise, like a great flock of birds flying
down the chimney, and then I heard a cry from
my brother and then again the noise, Hke the
birds v/ere flying out at the chimney again.
And then I ran in and found him there the way
you see him now.'

136 Fairies a7id Folk of Ireland

" Well, if the poor woman had never had
trouble with the child before, she had nothing
but trouble now. Crying and squalling it was
all the time, and it nearly ate her out of house
and home, and yet it seemed always sick and
weak and thin. The neighbors came and they
told her it was not her child at all, but one of
the Good People that had been put in the place
of it, and it was all her own fault for not having
it christened in the right time. But not a word
of it all would she listen to, and she said all the
time that, w^hatever was wrong with it, it was
her own child and she'ld hear nothing to the
contrary.

" It was an out-of-the-way place where they
lived, and there was no priest near, or she never
could have kept it from being christened as long
as she did. But at last the neighbors them-
selves said that if she didn't see to it, they would.
And they said to her : ' It's not your child at all
that's in it, and if you'll have it christened you'll
see. And if you won't take the child to the
priest with us now, we'll go to him ourselves
and tell him all about it. It's not right to keep
it from him longer.'

'' So with that she thought it was no use and
she'ld have to do as they said, and she took the
child and tried to dress him, ready to take him
to the priest to be christened. But the roars

Little Kathleen and Little Terence 137

and the screams that he let out of him were more
than anybody could bear, and at the last she said :
' Oh, I can't do it; it's too terrible a thing for
him; he won't bear it, and how can I make him? '

'' The next day when she came in from her
work the other boy said to her : ' Mother, it
was uncommon quiet he was while you was away
to-day. And by and by I went in to see what
was ailing him. And there he sat, looking so
Hke an old man that I was near afraid of him.
And he looked at me and he spoke as plain as an
old man, and he says : " Pat," says he, *' bring
me a pipe, till I have a bit of a smoke. It's tired
of life I am, lying here without it."

" ' " Ah," says I, '' wait till my mother gets
home and I'll tell her of this."

" ' " Tell her," says he, " and she'll not believe
a word from you." '

" ' And no more do I believe a word from you,'
says the woman.

" Well, soon after that there came a letter
from the father, saying that he'ld be at home now
in a few days. With that the woman set off to
town to buy things to eat and drink to welcome
her husband home, and she said : ' Now we'll
have the christening, as soon as ever he comes.'

" Then as soon as she was off, the neighbors
said : ' Now is the time that we'll be done with
that imp. We'll take him and have him chris-

138 Fairies a7id Folk of Irela7id

tened while she's away, and we'll not give hef
the chance to put it off again because he cries.'

** So they went to the house and one of the
women came up to the bed and clapped a quilt
over him and had him wrapped up in it before he
knew what w^as happening to him, and away
they all went down toward the brook, on the
way to the priest. Well, he kicked and he
struggled to get free, but the woman held him
so tight it was no use. But when they came to
the running water, it was then he began bel-
lowing like a herd of bulls, and kicking and
pulling so that it was all she could do to hold
him.

'' She got her foot on the first of the stepping-
stones, and it was then he began to get heavy, as
if it was a stone that she was carrying. But she
held hard and reached the second stone, and it
seemed to her that he was nothing but a lump of
lead, only still roaring and struggling; and, what
with that and the rushing of the water below her,
she began to get dizzy, but still she held on,
and she had her foot on the stone in the middle
of the stream when plump down he fell through
^ the quilt that he was wrapped in, as if it had
been nothing but a muslin handkerchief.

'' And there he went floating down the stream,
and shouting and laughing at them. For, you
know, it's not being in running water that can

^^^

.»

fxi^K^ry

ar

^"/sU^lf^-M

fi) »-^^

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TiLOeN FOUNDATIONS.

Little Kathleeri and Little Terence 139

hurt one of the Good People, but only crossing
it, and if they tried to cross it they'ld be in awful
pain till they got to the middle, and then noth-
ing could keep them from falling in.

'" So they were rid of him, and you know when
you're rid of a changeling the Good People
must send your own child back. And so the
neighbors had not got back to the house when
they met the mother running to meet them and
bringing her own child, that she had found in
its bed, when she got back from the town, sleep-
ing, as well and as sound as ever it was.

" And now, Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, " will
you let me try, in ways that I know, that can do
no harm, whether this is your own child or not?
And if it's not, you'll have your own back, as
well as it was last night."

" This is my own child," Ellen answered,
" and it's not by any silly tales like that that you
can make me believe it isn't. Ell not have you
doing anything of the sort. If you know any-
thing that can help a baby when it's sick, you
may do that, but nothing else."

" I do know one thing that can help a sick
baby," Mrs. O'Brien answered, " and that Ell do,
if you like it or not. If that thing there is one
of the Good People, as I think, it's not sick, and
it will live for thousands of years after we are
dead. We can neither help it nor much hurt it.

140 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

But if that is your child, it doesn't look to me as
if it would live an hour. I'll not try whether it's
yours or not, but if it's yours I'll not stand by and
see its soul die, that ought to be the soul of a
Christian. Ellen Sullivan, that child will be
christened before I leave this house."

" Christened ! " poor Ellen cried in amaze-
ment. ''And who's to christen him? We
couldn't get a priest here in an hour — maybe
not to-day."

*' There's no need of a priest," Mrs. O'Brien
said; '' I'll christen him myself. Bring me some
water there, Peter."

" But sure you can't do that," Peter pro-
tested. '' Nobody but a priest could christen a
child."

" I can christen the child as wxll as a priest,"
said Mrs. O'Brien; "you take a child to the
priest to be christened, when it's easy and con-
venient, but when there's no priest near, and the
child is sick and seems likely to die before one
can come, anybody can christen it; and that
christening stands, and it never has to be chris-
tened after. That's the law of the Church.
Bring me the water. I never saw a child that
seemed more likely to die than this one, if it's a
child at all."

And Peter brought the water.

'' What do you call the child? " Mrs. O'Brien
asked.

Little Kathleen and Little Terence 141

" I think we'll call him Terence," Peter an-
swered. " That was my grandfather's name, on
my mother's side, and a decent man he was, and
uncommon fond of myself when I was a bit of a
gossoon, till he died, Heaven rest his soul! and
I think I'd like to name the boy after him."

Now all that the child had been doing and all
the noise that he had been making before were
simply nothing to what he had been doing ever
since Mrs. O'Brien first said the word " chris-
ten." He was screaming so that all this talk
could scarcely be heard, and it was almost more
than Mrs. O'Brien could do to hold him, when
she took him in her arms. But she did hold him
for a moment with one arm, while she dipped up
some water with her hand and sprinkled it over
him. Then the creature gave one great jump
and was away from her and fell on the floor.

Before anybody else could move, Mrs.
O'Brien herself picked him up and laid him on
the bed. There was no sign that he was hurt.
No child that was hurt could have screamed as
he did. " Come, John," said Mrs. O'Brien,
" we've done all that we can."

''May I walk back with you a piece?" said
Peter. " There was something more that I was
thinking I would say."

"Come back with us, of course, and wel-
come," said John.

142 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

They left the house and walked along the
street.

" I think it was right, what you done, Mrs.
O'Brien," said Peter. '' I can't think about the
child the way you think, but it was right what
you done."

Mrs. O'Brien made no answer. " John," said
Peter, " there's something that I was thinking
of last night and this morning, and it was this :
You have a girl and I have a boy, that w^as both
born on the one day. It's good friends we've
always been, and your father and your mother
and my father and my mother before us. And I
was just thinking when your girl and my boy
grows up, supposing that they like each other
well enough, it might be pleasant to all of us that
they'ld be married some time.

" There's no man's son that I'd rather see a
daughter of mine married to than yours, Peter,"
said John, " if she herself was pleased. I'ld not
ask her to take anybody she didn't like, but if
she came to love him, and he came to love her,
rid be as pleased as yourself."

" It was that I wanted to say," said Peter,
" and I'd better go back to Ellen now."

John and his mother said no more till they
were at home. They both went into the room
where little Kathleen was. Mrs. Mulvey sat
watching the baby. She went out and left them.

Little Kathleen and Little Terence 143

The child was sleeping as peacefully as if there
were no such thing in the world as sorrow or loss
or doubt, or a fairy to help or harm.

"John," said Mrs. O'Brien, "I'd think I
might have done harm to that child in trying to
christen it, only I'm as sure as ever I was of any-
thing that it's not a child at all, but one of the
Good People, so I think there's no harm done.
I don't know what would happen any of the
Good People if he was to be rightly christened.
I think he'ld not be able to stand it and would be
driven out, so that they'ld have to send back the
real child. Now, if a priest ever sees that creat-
ure that we've just seen, and asks : ' Has this
child been christened?' they'll have to answer
' Yes,' and he cannot be christened again. And
yet, with the jump that he gave out of my arms
when I sprinkled the water, it's not sure I am
that a drop of it touched him."

VII

A CHAPTER THAT YOU CAN SKIP

This is a chapter that you can skip, if you
want to. And really I should advise you to.
Nothing of importance happened in the next
eighteen years. Of course I am obliged to write
a little something to fill in all that time, but you
are not obliged to read it. That is where you
have such an advantage. I think it is much
better for a book to have some parts that can be
skipped just as well as not, you get through it
so much faster. I have often thought what a
good thing it would be if somebody would write
a book that we could skip the whole of. I think
a good many people would like to have such a
book as that. I know I should.

Then there is another reason why it will be
well for you to skip a little about here. When
you get farther on, if you happen to come to
144

A Chapter That You Can Skip 145

something that you don't understand, you can
say: "Oh, this is probably all explained by
something in that part that I skipped," and you
can go right on. But if you had not skipped
anything and then came to something that you
did not understand, you would have to say:
" There, now, I must have been reading care-
lessly and missed something," and you would
have to go back and read the book all through
again.

In these eighteen years Kathleen O'Brien and
Terence Sullivan were growing up. I don't
suppose there ever was another such child as
Kathleen. And I should hope there never was
another such child as Terence. Kathleen's
grandmother had the most of the care of her, of
course, but it was really no care at all. It
would have been a pleasure for anybody to have
the care of Kathleen. Even when she was a
baby she was a perfect delight, and you know
what babies are sometimes. At any rate, you
would know, if you had known Terence. And
when she got to be a few years older, say seven
or eight

Well, it is perfectly impossible for me to tell
you how good and lovely Kathleen was. It is
all very well to try to describe snow-capped
mountains at sunrise, or a storm at sea, or moon-
light at Niagara, or a prairie on fire, or anything

146 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

of that sort, but nobody could tell you how good
and lovely Kathleen was, so that you could un-
derstand it. I suppose she was a good deal the
sort of child that you would be if you didn't put
your elbows on the table, or your spoon in your
mouth, or slam the doors, or cry when your hair
is combed, or tease for things that you ought not
to have, or whisper in company, or talk out loud
when there are older persons present, or leave
your playthings about when you are done with
them, or get your clothes soiled when you play
out of doors, or want to play at all when you
ought to study your lessons, or ask to be allowed
to sit up after bed-time, or bite your nails, or cut
your bread, or leave your spoon in your cup in-
stead of in your saucer, or take the biggest
apple.

I don't say that Kathleen never did any of
these things. I only say that she was so good
that you would have to leave ofif every one of
them or you would never catch up with her. If
Kathleen had a fault, it was that she was too
good. If I were going to have anything to do
with her I would rather she should be a little bit
worse than a single bit better. I am so glad
you are skipping this part, because I shouldn't
want you to try to be a bit worse than you are
just for the sake of pleasing me. And I don't
mean by all this that Kathleen was one of those

A Chapter That You Can Skip 147

children who are a bother all the time because
they are so good. She may have done things
that she ought not to do sometimes. I dare say
she did. I know she did once. I will tell you
all about that in the next chapter. She was
just a dear, sweet little girl, as bright and
merry and healthy as any little girl in the world
ever was. And you would think so yourself, if
you had known her and were not so jealous. If
I should tell you that she was as pretty as she
was good, I don't suppose you would believe me.
But she was, just as surely as I am writing this
book and you are reading it. I mean just as
surely as I am writing it. I am not sure yet
whether you are reading it or not.

But Terence! Well, the less said about him
the better. Still, I suppose, I shall have to say
something. He did every one of the things that
I have just mentioned. And it wasn't because
he didn't know any better; he seemed to like to
do them, just because he knew that they were
wrong. When he was a baby he was more trou-
ble than twins, and bad twins at that. He cried
all the time, except when he was eating or sleep-
ing, and he slept only a little of the time and ate
a great deal of it. He always seemed to be just
about so sick, but it never hurt his appetite and
he never got any sicker. After a while Ellen
got used to his being sick, and she always said

148 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

that he was delicate, poor child, and that was
why he was so cross and so much trouble.

"And is that why he eats so much?" Mrs.
O'Brien would ask.

" I dunno about that," Ellen would answer;
" I think it's the kind of sickness that's on him
that makes him eat so much."

" More likely it's eating so much that gives
him the kind of sickness that's on him," Mrs.
O'Brien would say. " But I tell you again, it's
no sickness at all he has. He's just one of the
Good People, and you could be rid of him and
have your own child back any time you would
do any of the things I would tell you."

But not a word of this would Ellen ever heed.
Terence was her own child, and he might be a
bit troublesome, as any child might, but he was
not really bad at all, and it was Kathleen, that
was always so good, the Lord knew why, that
made Mrs. O'Brien think that every child ought
to be that way. But there was one strange
thing about Terence, and Ellen herself had to
admit it. After that very hour, when he was
one day old, when Mrs. O'Brien came to see him
and christened him, or tried to — she never felt
sure till long afterward whether she had done it
or not — he was always quiet when she was near.
He would drive poor Ellen nearly crazy, in spite
of all her excuses for him, when he was alone

A Chapter That You Can Skip 149

with her, but the moment that Mrs. O'Brien
came into the house he would get as far away
from her as he could, and then lie perfectly still
and watch her, for all the world, as John said
once, like a rat in a trap watching a cat. Ellen
said that it was because he always remembered
that it was Mrs. O'Brien who had dropped him
once. To this John replied : " Then maybe
he'ld be making you less trouble, Ellen, if you
was to drop him yourself once or twice." But
Mrs. O'Brien said that it was just because he
knew what she would do to him if she had the
chance.

And there was another strange thing about
Terence. As he grew a little older, he never
could be got inside a church. Father Dufify
had never even seen him, except when he came
to the house w^hile he was still a baby, and then
Terence would scream and kick so, when the
good priest came near him, that he never dared
touch him. The first time that he came, Ellen
told him about Mrs. O'Brien's christening the
child, and asked him if it was right for her to do
it.

"" Was the child looking sick, and as if he was
likely to die?" Father Duffy asked.

" He was, father," Ellen answered; " I
couldn't deny that."

'' Then it was right for her to christen him,"

1 50 Fatjnes and Folk of Ireland

the priest answered, '' and he'll not need to be
christened again. In fact, he can't be christened
again."

But long after that, when they tried to take
him to church, he would never go. If Peter and
Ellen started for church with him he would run
away from them. They could not even hold
him. He would get away from them, and some-
times they could not tell how he did it, only he
would be gone. And then the only way that
they could find him was to go home again, and
there he was sure to be, as safe as ever, only he
had not been at church. And so, after a while,
they stopped trying to make him go.

When the two children were old enough to
play together, Terence never seemed to be happy
except when he was with Kathleen. He did
not care in the least to play with other boys. He
did not seem to care in the least to play at all.
All he wanted w^as to be with Kathleen. Kath-
leen never liked him, and she did not like to have
him with her so much of the time. But she was
too kind-hearted to hurt anybody in any way,
even a boy whom she did not like, so she tried to
treat him as nicely as she could, and she told
nobody but her grandmother, to whom she told
everything, that she was not as pleased to be
with him as he was to be with her.

Terence, in his turn, did not always treat

A Chapter That You Can Skip 151

Kathleen well, any more than he did anybody
else. He was ill-natured with her and he played
tricks on her that were not pleasant at all, and
yet he wanted to be always with her. Perhaps
it was partly because she was more kind to him
than anybody else, except Ellen. For nobody
else liked him. And if he was bad-tempered and
unkind to other people, it made other people
unkind and bad-tempered to him, but nothing-
could make Kathleen unkind to anybody.

" It's not fair you all are to Terence," Ellen
said once to Mrs. O'Brien, " to think bad of him
the way you do. There's things about him that
don't seem right, I know, but those things don't
show the way he really is. I dunno if I'm mak-
ing you understand me. I'm his mother and I
know him better nor anybody else, and I know
he's dififerent from the way he seems to you, and
even the way he seems to me sometimes. And
I'll tell you how I know that. When I'm asleep
I often dream about him. And when I dream
about him, he looks a Httle the way he does other
times, but he's taller and he's better-looking in
the face, and he looks stronger and brighter and
healthier like. And he speaks to me, and his
voice is lower and pleasanter in the sound of it.
And that's the way he'ld be, I know, if he had his
health, poor child, and if everything was right
with him. And you'ld all know that and you'ld

152 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

feel more for him, if you knew him the way
I do."

This was when Terence was six or seven years
old. And Ellen often spoke in this way after-
ward. She saw Terence in her dreams, and he
was a very different Terence from the one who
made her so much trouble when she was awake,
and yet he was partly the same.

And there was one thing that Terence did that
almost everybody liked. I might as w^ell say
everybody except Kathleen. He played the
fiddle. Nobody knew how he learned. There
was a neighbor of the Sullivans who came from
the same county in Ireland that they did, and
he played a fiddle in an orchestra at a cheap
theatre. One day Peter had gone to see this
man and had taken little Terence with him.
The fiddle was lying on the table. The two men
went into another room and left Terence by him-
self. They were talking busily and they forgot
about him. Then they heard a soft little tune
played on the fiddle. '' Who's that playing my
fiddle?" said the owner of it.

'' Sure," said Peter, '' we left nobody there but
Terence."

They went quickly back into the room and
found Terence hastily laying the fiddle down
where he had found it. " Ah, can't I leave you
alone a minute," said Peter, '' but you must be

A Chapter That You Can Skip 153

meddling with things that don't belong to you?
What'll I do now if you've gone and hurt the
fiddle?"

" Don't be talking that way to the child," said
the musician; '' sure he did it no harm. But
where at all did he learn to play that way?
That's what I'm thinking. Have you been let-
ting him learn all this time and never told me? "

" He never learned at all that I know of,"
Peter answered. '' I never saw him have a fiddle
in his hand till this minute."

" It's a strange thing, then," the musician
said. '' Anybody that can play a tune like he
did that one has a right to play more and better.
Where did you learn it, my boy? "

" I never learned it at all," Terence answered;
" I just saw the fiddle there and I thought I'ld
see could I play it. But it's little I could be
doing with it, I'm thinking."

Peter was surprised enough to find that Ter-
ence could play a tune on a fiddle, and so was
Ellen, when she heard about it. But they did
not wonder at it so much as they would have
done if they had known more about such things.
They had a sort of notion that one person could
play the fiddle and another could not, much as
one person can move his ears and another can-
not. So they thought little about it. But when
Terence begged them to buy him a fiddle of his

154 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

own, they saved up money a little at a time, and
at last they bought him one.

Then for days Terence did nothing but play.
He played simple little tunes at first, but soon he
began to play harder ones. Then he got im-
patient with himself, as it seemed, and he began
to play such music as nobody who heard him had
ever heard before. Often he would not play
when he was asked, but he would play for hours
by himself, when he thought that no one was
listening. His father brought his friend the
musician to hear him, and he said that it was
wonderful. He had never heard the fiddle
played so well. Nobody had ever heard the
fiddle played so well.

And Kathleen never cared to hear Terence
play. She did hear him play, many times, of
course, and she listened politely, but she told her
grandmother that she did not care about it at
all. She would much rather hear the poor
fiddler of the little orchestra, who had come from
their county in Ireland. Their neighbor the
fiddler himself was as much shocked as anyone
to hear Kathleen talk like this. " Did you ever
hear anybody play the fiddle like Terence plays
it? " he asked her, when she said something of
the sort to him.

" No," Kathleen answered. " I never heard
anybody play it like Terence, but I have heard

A Chapter' That You Ca7i Skip 155

some play it better than Terence. You play it
better."

" Oh, child," he said, " I'ld give all the money
I'll be earning in the next ten years if I could play
like he does. Don't you see I can't do half the
things he does with it? "

''I know that," Kathleen said; ''it isn't the
way he plays a bit that makes everybody talk so
about him; it's just the things he does. When
he plays a tune it just doesn't mean anything,
and when you play a tune it does."

And that was as near as Kathleen could ever
come to telling why she did not care about Ter-
ence's playing. Everybody else said that it w^as
wonderful, but she said that it didn't mean any-
thing. And when Kathleen talked in this way
they said that she was too critical. That is what
people will always tell you when you can see
through a fraud and they cannot.

You will suppose, without my telling you,
that as soon as Kathleen was old enough to
listen to them, her grandmother began telling
her the old stories of Ireland. Often Terence
would come and Hsten to them, too, for he seemed
to be less afraid of Mrs. O'Brien as he grew a
little older. But it never seemed to be because
of the stories that he came; he only wanted to
be near Kathleen.

Mrs. O'Brien told the children stories about

156 Fairies and Folk of h' eland

the Good People, and about the old heroes and
kings of Ireland who had fought to save the
country from its enemies. Terence never liked
the stories about the Good People. " Don't be
telling us about them fairies all the time," he
would say. '' Tell us about men; that's what I
like better."

" Don't call them by that name," Mrs. O'Brien
w^ould answer. '* They don't like it, and if you
call them by it they may do you harm."

'' I'll call them what I like," Terence would
say, " and they'll do me no harm. It's a worth-
less lot they are, and you know that same your-
self, Mrs. O'Brien, if you'ld only think so. They
can do no harm to you, or to any woman or man
that knows how to deal with them. Why will
you bother with them all the time? "

And all this made Mrs. O'Brien think the
more that Terence was one of them.

One day Mrs. O'Brien happened to tell the
children a ghost story. I don't know whether
your mother allows you to read ghost stories.
I don't see any harm in them myself, any more
than Mrs. O'Brien did, but some people do, and
if your mother does, then it is lucky that you are
skipping this part. I think that your mother
will be very glad that you skipped this part with
the ghost story in it. That is, of course, she
won't really be glad, because, since you are skip-

A Chapter That You Can Skip 157

ping it, you won't know that there is any ghost
story here, and so you won't tell your mother
that you skipped a ghost story, and so she won't
really care whether you skipped it or not. What
I mean is that if you had read it instead of skip-
ping it, so that you could tell your mother that
there was a ghost story, she would be glad that
you had skipped — well, what is the use of my
trying to tell you what I mean, as long as you
are skipping it, anyway? I had better go on
with the story.

" Once a man was coming home from a
funeral," said Mrs. O'Brien. " As he was walk-
ing along the road, near a churchyard, he found
the head of a man. He took it up and left it in
the churchyard. Then he went on his way, and
soon he met a man who looked like a gentleman.

"'Where have you been?' said the gentle-
man.

" ' I was at a funeral,' said the man, ' and as I
came back I found the head of a man, and I felt
it in the churchyard.'

" ' It was w^ell for you that you did that,' said
the gentleman. ' That was my head, and if you
had done any wrong by it, it would be the worse
for you.'

'' ' And how did you lose your head, then? ' the
man asked.

" ' I did not lose it,' the gentleman answered;

158 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

' I left it on the road, where you found it, to see
what you would do with it.'

'' ' Then you must be one of the Good People,'
said the man, ' and it's sorry I am that I met
you.'

" ' Don't be afraid,' said the gentleman. ' I'll
do you no harm, and I may do you good.'

"'I'm obliged to you,' said the man; 'will
you come home with me to dinner? '

" They went to the man's house, and the man
told his wife to get dinner ready for them.
When they had eaten dinner they played cards,
and then they went to bed and slept till morning.
In the morning they had breakfast, and after a
while the gentleman said : ' Come with me.'

" ' Where am I to come with you? ' the man
asked.

" ' I want you to see the place where I live,'
the gentleman said.

" They wxnt together till they came to the
churchyard. The gentleman pointed to a tomb-
stone and said : ' Lift it up.'

" The man lifted it up, and there was a stairway
underneath. They went down the stairs to-
gether till they came to a door, and it led into a
kitchen. Two women were sitting by the fire.
Said the gentleman to one of the women : ' Get
up and get dinner ready for us.'

" The woman got up and brought some small

A Chapter That You Can Skip 159

potatoes. ' Are those all you have for us? ' the
gentleman asked.

'' ' Those are all I have,' the woman answered.

'' ' As those are all you have,' said the gentle-
man, ' keep them.'

'' Then he said to the other woman : ' Get up
and get dinner ready for us.'

" The woman got up and brought some meal
and husks. ' Are those all you have? ' the gen-
tleman asked.

" ' Those are all I have,' the woman answered.

'' '' As those are all you have,' said the gentle-
man, ' keep them.'

'' He led the man up the stairs and knocked at
a door. A beautiful woman opened it. She
was dressed in a gown of silk, and it was all
trimmed with gold and jewels. He asked her if
she could give him and the stranger a dinner.
Then she placed before them the finest dinner
that was ever seen. And when they had eaten
and drunk as much as they liked, the gentleman
said : ' Do you know why this woman was able
to give us such a dinner? '

" ' I do not know,' said the man, ' but I should
like to know, if you care to tell me.'

" ' When I was alive,' said the gentleman, * T
had three wives. And the first wife I had would
never give anything to any poor man but little
potatoes. And now she has nothing but little

i6o Fairies and Folk of Irela7id

potatoes herself, and she can give nothing else
to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. And my
second wife would never give anything to the
poor but meal and husks, and now she has noth-
ing but meal and husks herself, and she can give
nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judg-
ment. But my third wife always gave to the
poor the best that she had, and so she will always
have the best that there is in the world, and she
can always give the best in the world to anyone,
till the Day of Judgment.'

" Then the gentleman took the man about and
showed him his house, and it was a palace, more
beautiful than anything that he had ever seen.
And while he was walking about it he heard
music. And he thought that he had never heard
music so beautiful. And while he was listening
to the music he felt like sleeping, so he lay down
and slept. And when he woke he was in his own
home. He never saw the gentleman again and
he could never find the place where he had
been."

" It's all the time fairies and ghosts with you,
Mrs. O'Brien," Terence said. '' Who cares
what they do? It's what men do that counts.
I'll tell you a story now."

So Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen listened to
Terence's story.

'' There was three men," Terence began,

A Chapter That You Can Skip i6i

" that lived near together, and their names was
Hudden and Dudden and Donald. Each one of
them had an ox that he'ld be ploughing with.
Donald was a cleverer man than the others and
he got on better. So the other two put their
heads together to think what would they do to
hurt Donald and to ruin him entirely, so that
he'ld have to give up his farm and they could
get it cheap. Well, after a while they thought
that if they could kill his ox he couldn't plough
his land, and then he'ld lose the use of it and
he'ld have to give it up. So one night they
went and killed Donald's ox.

" And to be sure, when Donald found his ox
killed, he thought it was all over with him. But
he wasn't the man to be thinking that way long.
So he thought he'd better make the best he could
of it, and he took the skin off the ox and started
with it to the town to sell it. And as he was
going along a magpie perched on the skin and
began pecking at it, and all the time chattering,
for it had been taught to talk. With that
Donald put round his hand and caught the mag-
pie and held it under his coat.

" He went on to the town and sold the skin,
and then he went to an inn for a drink. He
followed the landlady down into the cellar, and
while she was drawing the liquor he pinched the
magpie and it began chattering again. ' By the

1 62 Fairies and Folk of Ireland
powers,' says the landlady, ' who's that talking

and what's he saying at all?

" ' It's a bird,' says Donald, ' that I carry
around with me, and it knows a great deal and
tells me many a thing that it's good for me to
know. And it's after telling me just now that
the liquor you're giving me is not the best you
have.'

'' ' It's the wonderful bird all out,' says the
landlady, and with that she went to another cask
for the liquor. Then said she : ' Will you sell
that bird?'

" * I wouldn't like to do that,' says Donald.
' It's a valuable bird, and then it's been my friend
a long time, and I dunno what it would be think-
ing of me if I'd sell it.'

'' ' Maybe I'ld make it worth your while,' said
the landlady.

'' ' I'm a poor man,' says Donald.

'' ' I'll fill your hat with silver,' says the land-
lady, ' if you'll leave me the bird.'

"'I couldn't refuse that,' says Donald; 'you
may have the bird.'

'' So she filled his hat with silver, and he left
her the bird and went on his way home.

" It wasn't long after he got home till he met
Hudden and Dudden. ' Aha ! ' says he to them,
' you thought it was the bad turn you was doing
me, but you couldn't have done me a better.

A Chapter That Vote Can Skip 163

Look what I got for the hide of my ox, that you
killed on me.' And he showed them the hatful
of silver. ' You never saw such a demand for
hides in your life,' says he, ' as there is in the
town this present time.'

" No sooner had he said that than Hudden and
Dudden went home and killed their own oxen
and set off for the town to sell the hides. But
when they got there they could get no more
for them than the common price of hides, and
they came home again vowing vengeance on
Donald.

*' This time they were bound there would be
no mistake about it, so they went to his house
and they seized him and put him into a sack and
tied up the top of it. ' Now,' says one of them,
' you'll not be doing us any dirty turn this time,
I'm thinking. We're going to take you to the
river and throw you in and drown you; that's
what we're going to do, and I'm telling you of it
now, so that you'll have the pleasure of thinking
that all your sorrows are nearly over, as you go
along.'

"' Well, Donald said never a word, but he kept
thinking, and those words ' all your sorrows are
nearly over ' gave him something particular to
think about, and it wasn't long till he began to
see his way, if he could only get a chance to do
what he was thinking of.

164 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" They took up the sack and they carried it by
turns for a time, but both of them soon began to
get mighty tired and thirsty. Then they came
to a tavern, and they left the sack outside, and
Donald in it, and went in to get a drink. Donald
knew that if they once began drinking they
would stay inside for some time. Then pres-
ently he heard a great trampling sound, and he
knew it must be a herd of cattle coming, and he
knew there must be somebody driving them.
With that he began singing, like he was the
happiest man in the world.

" The man that was driving the cattle came up
to him and he says : ' Who's inside the sack
there, and what are you singing like that for? '

'' ' I'm singing because I'm the happiest man
alive,' says Donald. ' I had plenty of troubles
in my life, but I'm going to heaven now, and
they're all over. There's a blessing on this same
sack, you must know, and whoever' s in it goes
straight to heaven, and isn't it myself that's a
right to be singing? '

" ' Surely you have,' says the man, ' and it's
glad I'M be to take your place. What would
you take from me now to let me get in that sack
in your place? '

" ' There's not money enough in the world to
make me do it,' says Donald, and he began sing-
ing again.

V""*^.^'^!!

'■,. U^n^ «yi

M

■:k]):

- ~- '^^--r;: J

I

rtftr.1

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR, LENOX ANfi

TtLOEN founoations.

A Chapter That You Can Skip 165

" ' Ah, be reasonable ! ' says the man. ' I'll
pay you well.'

'' ' I tell you the whole world couldn't do it,'
says Donald. ' It's not every day a man gets a
chance to go to heaven. Think of being over
with all the sorrows and the troubles of this
world, and nothing but happiness any more for-
ever. Sure rid be a fool if I'ld give it up.'

'' ' Oh, but think of me,' says the man. ' It's
me that has the sorrows on me so that I can't
bear them. There's my wife died three months
ago, and all the children was dead before her, and
it was she always helped me with the farm and
knew how to manage better nor myself, so that
now she's gone I can do nothing with it. And
I've lost money on it till I can't pay the rent, and
now I'll lose the farm itself, and here I am driv-
ing these cattle to town to sell them to get money
to take another piece of land and keep the life
in me, and yet I don't want to live at all. Oh,
give me your place in that sack and you'll go
to heaven in your own time, if it was only for
that one good deed. Give me your place and I'll
give you these twenty fine cattle, and you'll have
better luck nor me and you'll surely do well with
them.'

" ' I can't resist you,' says Donald; ' sure it's
you needs to go to heaven more nor me. It's
the truth I hate to do it, but I'll give you my
place.'

1 66 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" So with that the man untied the sack and
Donald got out of it and he got into it, and
Donald tied it up again. Then Donald went
away home, driving the cattle before him.

" It was not long then till Hudden and Dud-
den came out of the inn, and they took up the
sack, thinking that Donald was still inside it, and
they took it to the river and threw it into a deep
place. Then they went home, and there they
found Donald before them, and a herd of the
finest cattle they ever saw. ' How is this,
Donald?' they said. 'We drowned you in the
river, and here you are back home before us.
And where are you after getting all these cattle? '

" ' Oh, sure,' says Donald, ' it's myself has the
bad luck all out. Here I've only twenty of these
cattle, and if I'd only had help I could have had a
hundred — aye, or five hundred. Sure in the
place where you threw me in, down at the
bottom of the river, there was hundreds of the
finest cattle you ever saw, and plenty of gold be-
sides. Oh, it's the misfortunate creature that I
am, not to have any help while I was down there.
Just these poor twenty was all I could manage to
drive away with me, and these not the best that
was there.'

" Then they both swore that they would be
his friends if he would only show them the place
in the river where they could get cattle like his.

A Chapter That Yoic Can Skip 167

So he said he'ld show them the place and they
could drive home as many of them as they liked.
Well, Hudden and Dudden was in such a hurry
they couldn't get to the river soon enough, and
when they were there Donald picked up a stone,
and said he : ' \\'atch where I throw this stone,
and that's where you'll find the most of the
cattle.'

" Then he threw the stone into a deep part
of the river, and he said : ' One of you jump in
there now, and if you find more of the cattle than
you can manage, just come to the top and call
for help, and the other two of us will come in
and help you.'

" So Hudden jumped in first and he went
straight to the bottom. In a minute he came up
to the top and shouted : ' Help ! help ! '

"'He's calling for help,' says Donald; 'wait
now till I go in and help him.'

" ' Stay where you are,' says Dudden ; ' haven't
you cattle enough already? It's my turn to have
some of them now.' And in he jumped, and
Hudden and Dudden was both drowned. And
then Donald went home and looked after his
cattle and his farm, and soon he made money
enough to take the two farms that Hudden and
Dudden had left, besides his own.

" And that's the way," said Terence, " to get
on in this world or any world. Get the better

1 68 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

of them that's trying to get the better of you,
and don't hope for any help from fairies or
ghosts."

'' Terence," said Mrs. O'Brien, '' there's a little
that's right in what you say, and there's more
that's wrong. Depend on yourself and don't
look for help from Good People or ghosts. So
much of what you say is right. But Donald
was not honest and he got on by tricks, and I
don't want you or Kathleen to be that way.
You'll not get on that way; you'll only come to
grief. But I want you to be kind and helpful to
mortals and Good People because it's right to
be so, not to get any reward. The reward you
may get or you may not in this world, but it's
not that I want you to work for. And I'll tell
you a story now to show you what I mean.

" There was a poor little bit of a boy once, and
he had a hump on his back. He made his living
by plaiting rushes and straw into hats and
baskets and beehives, and he could do it better
than anybody else for miles around. I don't
know what his right name was, but the people
called him Lusmore, after the flower of that
name. The flower, you know, is the one that
some call fairy-cap — the Lord between us and
harm! — and others call it foxglove. And they
called him after it, because he would always be
wearing a sprig of it in his cap. And in spite of

A Chapter That You Can Skip 169

having a crooked back, which often makes a
body sulky, he was a good-natured httle fellow,
and never had a bad word or a bad thought for
anybody.

'' One day he had been at a fair to sell some of
the things that he made out of straw and rushes,
and as he was coming home he felt tired with the
long walk. So he sat down to rest for a little,
and he leaned his back on a bank of earth, not
thinking that it w^as a place that w^as said to be
a rath of the Good People. He sat there for a
long time, and at last he began to hear music.
It was very soft at first, and he had to listen hard
to catch it at all. Then it sounded clearer, and
after a little he could tell that there were fiddlers
and pipers. Then he thought that he could hear
the feet of dancers, and finally singers, and he
could hear the words of the song that they sang.
And these were the words :

Da Luan, da Mort,
Da Luan, da Mort,
Da Luan, da Mort.

*' And there were no other words but these,
and these the singers sang over and over and
over again. And all they mean is, ' Monday,
Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday.'
After the singers had sung these words they
would make a little pause and then they would

170 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

go on with them. Lusmorc knew now that the
music came from inside the rath, and he knew
well enough that it was the Good People he was
listening to. He kept very quiet and listened,
and it seemed a wonderfully sweet song to him,
only after a while he got tired of hearing no other
words. And he thought : ' Maybe they'd like
the song better themselves if there was more of
it, and I wonder couldn't I help them with it.'

" But he knew he must not disturb the Good
People, so he waited till one of the little pauses,
and then he sang very softly : ' Angus da
Cadine.'

'' Then he kept on singing all the words, along
with the singers inside the rath, adding on his
own new line every time :

Da Luan, da Mort,
Da Luan, da Mort,
Da Luan, da Mort,
Angus da Cadine.

" And that means : ' Monday, Tuesday, Mon-
day, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednes-
day too.'

" As he went on h€ sang a little louder and a
little louder, till by and by the Good People in
the rath began to listen to hear who or what it
was that was singing their song with them, and
then they caught the line that Lusmore had

A Chapter That You Can Skip 171

added. Then they were so pleased that they
scarcely knew what to do, for they were more
tired of the song than he was, only they did not
know what to do to make it any better. And
when they found it was somebody outside the
rath that was singing it and was making more
out of it than they ever did, they wanted to have
him inside as soon as possible.

" So all at once Lusmore saw a door open in
the rath, close beside him, and a great light
streaming out, and then there was the sound of
wings all around him, and next he saw the forms
of the Good People pouring out and flying and
whirling around him like a swarm of butterflies.
They caught him up and carried him inside the
rath, so lightly that he could not tell what was
holding him, and he felt as if he was floating in
the air. He was a little frightened at first, but
when they had him inside the rath they set him
up above all the musicians and thanked him for
mending their song, and did him all sorts of
honor.

" Then he saw some of the Good People talk-
ing together in a little group, and presently they
came up to him, and one of them said : ' Lus-
more, weVe been thinking what will we do for
you as a reward for mending our song, and we've
decided to ask yourself what it is that you'ld
rather we'ld give you. Think, now, what it is

172 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

that you'ld rather have than anything else in the
world.'

" ' It's obliged to you I am for your kindness,
gentlemen,' said Lusmore, ' but if you'ld do
what would please me most in all the world, it's
not giving me anything you'ld be, but taking
something from me, and that's this hump that I
have on my back.'

*' ' That's easy done,' said the one of them that
had spoken before; ' come on now and dance
with us.'

" Well, Lusmore, being crooked the way he
was, and always weak, had never danced before in
his life, and he never thought he could; but when
they took hold of him on both sides and led him
out, he found that he was dancing with the best
of them, and he felt so light and he moved so
easily that it seemed to him as if he was no more
than a feather that the wind was blowing about.
Then one of the Good People said to him,
' Lusmore, where is your hump now? '

" And he felt behind him for it, and it was not
on his back at all. ' Look down on the floor,'
said the one that had spoken to him, again. And
he looked down, and there was his hump, lying
on the floor before him.

*' Then they all began dancing again and Lus-
more with them, till he felt tired and then dizzy,
and then he fell to the ground, and he knew

A Chapter That You Can Skip 173

nothing more till he awoke in the morning and
found himself lying on the ground outside the
rath, where he had sat down to rest the night
before. The first thing he thought was that it
was a dream that he had had, but he never had
felt so well and so strong in his life as he did that
minute. So he put his hand behind him, and
there was no hump there. And, what was more,
he had on a new suit of clothes that the Good
People had given him. Then he went home
and told his neighbors what had happened to
him, and they could scarcely beheve it. But
everyone knew that there were Good People in
that rath, and there was himself, too, the same
boy as before, only without the hump, and so,
at long last, they had to believe the whole
story.

'' Well, the news of Lusmore's wonderful cure
was told all through the country, and at last it
came to a place a long way of¥, where there was
another boy lived that had a hump on his back.
And a different sort of boy he was from Lusmore.
His temper was as bad as his body. He was ill-
natured and spiteful and lazy, and he would al-
ways rather be making trouble than saving it.
So when his mother heard the way Lusmore had
had the hump taken off him, she thought maybe
her boy could get rid of his own in the same
way.

174 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" With that she set off with the boy and a
neighbor of hers, and they came to where Lus-
more lived, and asked him would he tell them all
about how it w^as that he had the hump taken off
him. And he w^nt over it all with them and told
them everything that he did and everything that
happened to him. And in the end he went with
them to show them the very spot where he had
sat down beside the rath, and there they left the
little hunchback, and told him to do everything
just as Lusmore had done it.

" He sat there Hstening for a long time and
heard nothing, and so at last he wxnt to sleep,
and then all at once he was aw^akened by hear-
ing the Good People singing in the rath. And
they were singing much better now than when
Lusmore heard them first, for they had the song
now as he had improved it for them, and they
were singing:

Da Luan, da Mort,
Da Luan, da Mort,
Da Luan, da Mort,
Augus da Cadine.

" And as soon as he heard it the little fellow,
not waiting for time or tune, shouted out:
* Augus da Hena.' And if it was all put to-
gether right that would make it mean : ' Mon-
day, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tues-

A Chapter That You Can Skip 175

day, and Wednesday too, and Thursday too.'
Only he didn't trouble to put it together right,
but just bawled it out any way.

'' Then the music stopped all at once, and he
heard the people inside the rath shouting:
' Who is spoiling our tune? Who is spoiling
our tune? ' and out they all came and caught him
up and hurried him inside the rath so that the
breath nearly went out of his body. And one
of them shouted : ^ What shall we do to him
for spoiling our tune? ' and another said : ' Ask
him what he wants us to do for him ! ' and
another said : ' What do you want from us,
anyway? '

" And he just found breath enough to say :
^ I want the same that Lusmore had,' meaning
by that he wanted them to reward him the same
way they did Lusmore.

''But one of the Good People shouted:
' You'll get what Lusmore had, then ; it was a
hump on the back that Lusmore had, and we
took it ofif him, but we don't w^ant it and it's easy
to give it to you. Be lively there now, some of
you, and hand that hump down here.'

" And then some of the Good People got Lus-
more's hump, that was hanging up under the
roof, and they clapped it on his back, on the top
of his own, and then they threw him out of the
rath. And there his mother found him in the

176 Fai7'ies a7id Folk of Ireland

morning, more dead than alive and with a hump
twice as big as before."

'' A fine story that is, Mrs. O'Brien," Terence
said, when the old woman had finished. " And
why didn't the one of them get the same reward
as the other? Sure he did the same as the other
in lengthening the song for the fairies, didn't
he?"

" He did the same in a w^ay," Mrs. O'Brien
answered, " but not for the same reason. Lus-
more helped them with the song because he
thought they might be the better for his help,
and that w^as all the reason. And he did it in a
way that wouldn't disturb them. But the other
did it only to help himself, because he thought
that he'ld get a great reward for it, and he had
no real wish to do them any kindness. Don't
you see the difference between the two of
them?"

" Stuff!" said Terence.

VIII

THE STARS IN THE WATER

This is to be another sort of chapter alto-
gether. I am going to tell you now what hap-
pened. The eighteen years are gone now and
we have come to the time when there is some-
thing to tell.

When those eighteen years began, you know,
Kathleen and Terence were not much more than
born. So, if you have got as far as addition and
can add eighteen to nothing and find that it
makes eighteen, you will see that by this time
they were about eighteen years old. John
O'Brien and his mother and Kathleen did not
live on the east side of Central Park any more.
John had got on better and better with the work
that he w^as doing. After a while, instead of
having to do work of common kinds any more,
he had been put in charge of other men who were
doing it. After another while he learned so
177

I yS Fairies and Folk of Ireland

much about the work and how it was done and
how it ought to be done, that he was made one
of the partners in the company that did it. So
he got a good deal more money and he was able
to take his mother and Kathleen out of the little
tenement where she was born, and to live in a
better place. Then he had a house of his own,
over on the west side of the Park, and it was
there that Kathleen lived when she was eighteen
years old.

Peter had not got along so well. John him-
self employed him, but Peter knew enough to
go only just so far, and there he stuck. He lived
in a little better place than he did at first, but he
could never make his way like John. And then
Terence, as he grew up, made a good deal of
trouble. He never would learn anything useful
and he never would do anything useful. He
never helped his father at all, and always his
father had to help him. If there was any fight
or any accident or anything troublesome or
wrong within a mile, Terence was always in the
midst of it. He was constantly getting his head
and his ribs broken, and Peter was always hav-
ing to pay for other people's things that he had
broken, from their heads to their w^indows.

Ellen's excuse for him, that he was never well
and had never been quite himself since he was
born, was pretty well worn out. For, people

The Stars in the Water 179

said, he had always been exactly the same ever
since he was born, and if that same was not him-
self, who was it? But Ellen kept saying it none
the less. Many a time Mrs. O'Brien tried to
make her believe that the boy was a changeling,
and not her child at all, and many a time she
begged Ellen to let her only try a charm to see if
he was, but Ellen never would hear of it. She
always said what she had said at first, that no-
body knew^ him but her. She saw him better
when she dreamed about him, for then she saw
him as he really was, without all the harm that
had been done to him by all the sickness that
had been on him one time and another.

You might suppose that anybody who could
play the fiddle as well as Terence need not have
any trouble in making his own living. He
might have found a place in a theatre, like the
man whose fiddle he had played on first. He
might have taught others to play. Or he might
have played all by himself, and hundreds of
people would have paid to hear him. But he
would play only when he chose, and he would
never do anything useful with his fiddle. And
everybody said he played so wonderfully —
everybody except Kathleen.

And this brings us back to Kathleen. Ter-
ence heard before he was many years old some-
thing about the plan that Peter and John had

i8o Faunes and Folk of Ireland

made, that he and Kathleen should be married
when they grew up, if they both liked the plan.
He seemed to forget all about this last part, " if
they both liked the plan." He liked the plan
himself and he seemed to think that that was
enough. He had talked about it to Kathleen
many times, before they were both eighteen
years old, and it troubled Kathleen so that she
tried never to see Terence when she could possi-
bly help it. She had always disliked him, though
she had always tried not to show it; but as they
got a little older and she found that there was
no other way to keep away from him at all, she
had to tell him so.

But do you suppose that made any difference
with Terence? Well, it did make a difference
with him, but he did not let anybody see that it
did. When Kathleen told him for the first time
that she did not like him at all, he went away by
himself. He went straight to the hill that is in
the north end of the Park, and there he threw
himself down on his face on the grass. For
hours he lay there, trembling and crying, and
beating the ground with his feet and his fists.
And it would take another book as large as this
to tell all that he was saying to himself or to the
grass, or to something under the grass — how
can I tell? And you would not want to read the
book. It is not likely that you will ever see any-

The Stars in the Water i8i

body in such a rage as he was in. But at the end
of it he stood up and looked just as he usually
did, and went straight to the O'Briens' and
stayed all the evening and kept as near Kathleen
as he could, and stared at her all the time. And
he talked to her then and afterward, just as if
she had told him that she liked him better than
anybody else that she knew.

So Kathleen had to go to her grandmother,
as she always did when she w^as in any trouble,
and tell her all about it. And her grandmother
told her that she and Terence were both a good
deal too young to think of anything of the sort,
and that she would do all that she could to help
her. But she could not do much. She told
John about it, and he said that he should be sorry
if the plan that he and Peter had made could not
be carried out, but he would forbid it himself,
as long as Terence was so lazy and so worthless
and so bad as he was now. When he got a little
older, he hoped that everything would be better,
and there was no hurry about anything.

And though Terence made her so much
trouble, Kathleen had many other things to
think about. She went to school and learned a
great deal, and her grandmother taught her a
great deal more. Her grandmother told her
stories still, and, though she w^as nearly eighteen
and felt that she w^as getting so dreadfully old.

1 82 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

she still liked stones. Then she had a good
many friends, and she spent much of her time
with them. She visited Ellen often, too, going
to see her at times when she thought that Ter-
ence would not be at home. Ellen and Peter
still lived on the east side of the Park, and some
of her friends lived there, too, so that Kathleen
often walked through the north end of the Park,
near that hill that I have told you about so many
times before.

Kathleen was fond of this part of the Park, as
everybody is who knows it. But especially she
was fond of one little spot that nobody else
seemed to notice much. So Kathleen got a
feeling that this one place belonged to her, and
she was all the more fond of it because of that
It was a tiny little basin of water, near the path,
but up a grassy bank. On the side toward the
path it was all open, but on the other side there
were rocks, and out of a little cleft in the rocks
ran a bit of a stream of water that fed the little
basin. Then, around the rocks and over them
there was more grass, and the hill rose at both
sides and above. On the edge of the hill, right
over the basin, was a pine-tree, and around it
were other trees. Their branches came together
over the water and almost shut out the sky from
it, but not quite.

Every time that Kathleen passed it, she went

The Stars in the Water 183

up the bank and looked into the still water. She
had a feeling that if she ever went by and did not
do this the water would miss her and would feel
hurt. When she did this by daylight and in
summer, if she stood up and looked into the
water, she could see a patch of branches and
green leaves and blue sky through them, about
as big as the basin itself, and that was scarcely
larger than a fair-sized tub. But if she stooped
down close to the water and looked into it, she
saw that there was a great deal of sky under it,
below the trees, which grew upside down.
There was almost as much sky under the water
as she could see above it, and she believed that
there would prove to be quite as much if she
could only get her head where she could see
it.

She used to look in at night sometimes, too,
and try to see if there were any stars in that sky;
but in the summer she never could see any, be-
cause the leaves on the trees were so thick that
they almost hid the sky, and they seemed to be
thicker and to hide the sky more by night than
they did by day. In the winter it was different.
Then there were no leaves, but only branches
and twigs, which covered the sky like lace work,
and through these Kathleen sometimes thought
that she could see a star or two in the water, but
she was seldom quite sure. Yet she never

184 Fairies a7id Folk of Irela7id

passed the place without looking in it, to see the
green leaves and the blue sky or the black leaves
and the almost black sky, or the stars, if she could
find any.

On a certain day — the last day of April it was
— there was a good deal of excitement in the
fairy palace under the hill. The reason of it was
that a new fairy had come to live there. Perhaps
you never heard of a baby fairy. I have read a
good many stories about fairies that said noth-
ing about any such thing. Now, you needn't try
to be so bright about it and say that of course
there must be baby fairies, or there could not be
any grown-up fairies. That isn't so at all.
Fairies are not like men about growing old and
dying and other fairies taking their places. I
have heard of a fairy funeral, but I can't imag-
ine how it happened, and I think that the story
about it must have been a mistake. If you have
read this book as far as here, you know that
most fairies are thousands of years old, and you
know, too — for Naggeneen has told you — what
is Hkely to become of them in the end. Still,
there is no sort of doubt that now and then a
new fairy is born, and there was one born on this
day. He was the son of the King and the
Queen, and you can guess well enough that a
fairy prince is a person of some consequence.

The Stars in the Water 185

" What will we do at all for a nurse for the
baby?" said the Queen.

'' What will we do at all? " said the King.

'' It never would do for me to have the care of
him at the first," said the Queen.

" Never a bit," said the King; '' it would ruin
him."

" How would it ruin him? " said the Queen.

"' Never a know I know, no more nor you,"
said the King, '' but you know as well as I it
would ruin him."

" Why can't I care for my own child? " said
the Queen, '' the same as a human mother
does? "

" I dunno," said the King, " only we know
you can't. We've never dared try, to see what
would happen. He must have a human nurse.
Maybe it's something to do with them things
Naggeneen was always talking about our hav-
ing no souls "

•' Don't be talking about Naggeneen," said
the Queen, " and me not well at all." Then she
was silent for a little while and then she went on
talking about Naggeneen herself. " Are you
sorry he left us? "

"Who?" said the King.

" Naggeneen," said the Queen.

'' I'm not sorry," said the King. '' We've
more peace without him. Though he was

1 86 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

clever and he often told us the right thing to
do and he might tell us the right thing to
do now."

" Did he tell us the right thing to do when he
told us to bring Terence here to learn the ways of
men and to teach them to us? "

'' Sure Terence is a good boy," said the King,
" and he plays the fiddle as well as Naggeneen
himself, so we don't miss Naggeneen for the only
thing that he was good for. And Terence is
easier to have about other ways."

'' But has he ever learned the ways of men
and taught them to us? " the Queen asked.

The King was getting annoyed. " He has
learned them, I think," he said, '' but he has
never taught them to us. And you know Nag-
geneen himself said the plan would be no use."

" He did," said the Queen; '' only you would
try it. And just so all this talk is no use. What
will we do for a nurse for the baby? "

" We'll find one some way," the King an-
swered. '' Was you thinking of anyone in par-
ticular? "

'' I was not thinking of anyone in particular."

" How would Kathleen O'Brien do, do you
think? " the King asked.

" I don't want to be troubling the O'Briens,"
the Queen said, " and they always so kind to
us."

The Stars in the Water 187

" It would not be troubling them much; we'ld
only keep her a little while and they'ld hardly
miss her."

'' If she was once here," said the Queen,
" some one of your men would want to keep her,
and it would break the heart of her grandmother.
So it would her father's, too, but I'm not think-
ing so much of him."

" We'll not keep her," said the King, " only
as long as the child needs her."

"You say that now," said the Queen; "it
would be different if she was once here — I'M like
to have her as well as anyone I know."

" We could find no one else so good," said the
King. " It's May Eve, you mind. There's no
time when we have more power, and few when
we have so much. We'll all be dancing to-
night, and Kathleen often passes along just
about dark. It's likely we could get her to
dance with us, and then we'ld be sure enough of
her. If that fails, there's other ways. Our
power lasts till sunrise."

" And you think we'ld not be keeping her
long? " said the Queen.

" We'ld have her home almost before she was
missed," the King answered.

" I wouldn't mind if you tried," said the
Queen.

1 88 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Kathleen had been to visit Ellen. She was
on her way home through the Park, and she
had meant to get there before dark, but it was a
little later than she had thought, and she saw
the red in the sky before her getting darker and
duller every minute. As she walked along she
saw two other girls of about her own age, whom
she knew, in front of her. She overtook them
and the three walked on together, though the
others could scarcely keep up, Kathleen hurried
so.

When they were nearly through the Park
they came to the little basin wdiere the water
ran down out of the rock. Though she wanted
to get home so quickly, she could not pass this
place without going up the bank and looking
into the water, because she felt so sure that if she
did not the water would miss her and feel hurt.
She ran up the bank and looked into the still
little pool. The other girls went on, and she
heard one of them call after her : " Thought
you were in a hurry ! "

Kathleen did not mind them, but only looked
into the water, which was almost black, it was
getting so dark all around. She had not seen
the water look so dark in a long time. She
looked up over her head and she saw that it was
because the little new leaves had begun to come
out on the trees and were beginning to hide the

The Stars in the Water 189

sky. She saw one or two of the brightest stars,
that had already come out in the sky, and she
looked back into the water and tried to see them
there, but she could not find them. There was
nothing but the little, still, black pool.

She went back to the path and ran on after the
other girls. She saw them walking on slowly,
only a Httle way ahead of her. Just as she had
nearly come up with them she stood still to look
at a wonderful sight. She just thought dimly
that it was strange that the other girls were not
watching it, too, but the sight itself excited her
so that she had not much time to think of that.
On the grass, close beside the path, there were
ever so many boys and girls — at least she
thought at first that they were boys and girls —
dancing. The grass in that place sloped up-
ward from the path, and the ground was a little
hollowed, in a sort of shell shape. All around
the place, except where the path was, trees and
bushes hung over the grass. The buds were
just opening here, too, and the air was full of
the smell of the new spring grass and leaves,
which always grows stronger in the evening.

Kathleen stood gazing at the boys and girls
dancing. There were so many of them that she
could not count them. She thought that they
seemed to be a little younger and smaller than
herself. The boys all wore green jackets and

IQO Fairies and Folk of Ireland

red caps. When she looked at them more
closely she could not tell whether they were boys
at all or not. They looked more like old men.
And she could scarcely believe that either, be-
cause they danced so fast and seemed so lively.
Her father could not dance like that, she was
sure, and he was not an old man.

But she had no doubt that the girls were girls.
Usually she could not tell a pretty girl from an
ugly one, any more than any other girl can, but
she knew that these were pretty. Anybody
would. They had long, golden hair that hung
all loose and free and came down to their knees,
when the little wind did not blow it away in some
other direction. They had deep, soft eyes.
They were dressed in long, white gowns, so
white that they shone, now like a sheet of pale
light and now with a hundred little sparkles, as
the water of the sea does sometimes, when it is
broken into foam by the prow of a ship. All the
men carried lanterns and all the girls had some-
thing that looked like long flower-stems, only
there were tiny lights on the ends of them, in-
stead of flowers. These and the lanterns did
not seem to trouble them at all in dancing, and
if Kathleen had seen the lights and had not seen
the dancers, she would have thought that they
were a swarm of fireflies.

She had scarcely stood there for a minute

The Stars i7i the Water 191

before one of the men came up to her and asked
her to dance with him. Kathleen's first thought
was that she ought to be afraid, and her second
thought was that she was not afraid a bit. She
liked dancing and she had just been wishing that
she could dance with these boys and girls.
Then she wondered if it was quite right. Then
she could not see what there could be wrong
about it. Then she let the little man take her
hand and she stepped off the path upon the grass
and began to dance. She heard the other girls
calling to her again, farther up the path. She
called back to them : " I am coming in a
minute ! Wait for me ! " And then she went
on dancing.

When she had been only looking on, the danc-
ing had seemed to Kathleen to be quite won-
derful, but now she found that she could do it
all nearly as well as the little boys and girls.
She thought that it might be because the little
old man was a better partner for dancing than
she had ever had before. They danced around
by themselves, moving in and out among the
others, no matter how close together they were,
and always finding their way, now in the midst
of the whole company and now out beyond the
very edge of it, and then suddenly all the dancers
would join hands and whirl about in a great
circle, so fast that Kathleen could not tell

192 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

whether her feet were touching the ground at
all.

It seemed to her that she had never done any-
thing so delightful before. She did not think of
going on with the other girls any more. She
did not think of getting home early, or of any-
thing but the dancing. She could not tell at all
how long she had been dancing, but it was all
dark, except for the little lanterns and the little
lights on the flower-stems, and the stars were all
out in the sky. And then somebody said : '' It
is time to go."

The man who had been dancing with Kathleen
whispered to her: '' You are to go with us."

And Kathleen thought of nothing but of
going with the queer little old men and the
beautiful little girls. They all left the shell-
shaped grass-plot and moved along together —
Kathleen could scarcely tell even now whether
her feet were on the ground or not — over the
grass, till they came to a little pool of water —
Kathleen's own little pool.

She looked down into it, and there was no
doubt about the stars now. There were hun-
dreds of them down under the water, shining up
through it from as far below, it seemed, as the
stars in the sky were up above. The dancers
who came to it first stepped on the surface of the
pool, and it bore them up as if it had been a floor

The Stars in the Water 193

of glass. Then Kathleen saw that the rocks
behind the pool were not as she had ever seen
them before. There was an opening straight
into the hill, and when she came nearer still she
saw that the water was no longer a little pool.
It was more like a long, narrow lake, and it cov-
ered the bottom of the opening that led into the
hill. All the people were going in, walking
along the path of water as easily as if it had been
a path of ice.

Again it seemed to Kathleen that she ought to
be afraid, and again it seemed to her, still more
clearly, that she was not afraid. When she came
to the water she put her foot upon it and walked
along it as easily as the others were doing. She
thought that she would remember that this
water could be walked on, and would try it the
next day. She had never thought of trying it
before.

But now she and the others were moving
along the path into the hill. It was still dark,
except for the lights that they carried and the
stars that shone up through the water. And
these were not the reflection of any stars in the
sky, for there was no sky to be seen over them
now — only rocks. Then there was a pale violet
light shining on the walls of the passage ahead
of them. Then, as Kathleen looked down at
the water again, to see if she were really walking

194 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

on it, she saw that there were no more stars, but
the water was of a faint, shining yellow, and in
a moment she was not walking on water any
more, but on a floor, that seemed to her to be
all of gold.

She could do nothing now but stand still and
look around at the wonderful sight. All around
her were walls of silver, so bright that they re-
flected everything in the great hall, and she
could not tell at all how large it was. But she
made out that in the middle was a great dome,
held up by the most wonderful gleaming col-
umns of gold and silver, first a column of gold
and then a column of silver, and these she saw
again and again in the walls all about. She
could not see the top of the dome from where
she stood, it was so high, but all around the sides
of it she saw great diamonds and rubies and
emeralds, some of them as big as her head, that
poured down soft white and red and green lights,
and these she saw, too, shining up, a little dim-
mer, from the gold of the floor, which was almost
as good a mirror as the walls.

The sides of the dome, in which the jewels
were set, were all of bands and lines and ribbons
of gold and silver, wonderfully woven together
into shapes and patterns which she could not
follow or trace out with her eyes, because they
seemed to be always slowly moving — turning

The Stars in the Water 195

and twisting and winding and wreathing about,
never for a moment the same, but always new
and always beautiful. And wdien this was re-
flected in the golden floor it was like the waver-
ing shapes in water that is almost still, but yet
has little waves that dance and break up every
reflection that is seen in it.

And still, although she saw no lamps except
the great white and red and green gems, there
came from somewhere — perhaps from the top of
the dome, she thought — that violet light that
she had seen first on the walls of the passage,
and it filled the whole hall, like the glow of a
glorious sunset that never faded. And all this
was inside a hill that Kathleen had known all
the years of her life, and she had never seen any-
thing wonderful about it.

While Kathleen is wondering at the fairy
palace I will explain to you the subject which
you have been wondering about. If you only
knew more we could get on with the story so
much faster. It is most annoying. And you
have been brought up so well too ! I don't see
that it is anybody's fault but your own. You
have been wondering all along how it was that
the fairies seemed to Kathleen to be, as I said,
only a little smaller than herself, when you have
always heard that fairies were so very little.

196 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Well, to think of your not understanding that !
I am bound to say that when I was of your age 1
was just as ignorant about it as you are now, but
then, children now have a good many more ad-
vantages than they had in my day. Considering
how few advantages we had, it is a great credit
to people of my age that we know anything at all,
and, considering how many of them you have, it
is a disgrace to you that you do not know every-
thing.

When I was a child I used to read about fairies,
and the book would say that they were six inches
tall, or that they were about as big as a man's
thumb, or it would tell about their sitting in
flowers. And then I would look at the pictures
and they would appear to be as high as a man's
knees, or even higher. And I could not under-
stand it. But I made up my mind to find out
about it. That is what you must do, when there
is anything that you don't understand. There
are very few things that you can't do, if you
make up your mind to them, except things that
are too hard for you. I hate to have morals
getting into a story as much as you do, but that
is such a good one that it might as well go in.

Now I will tell you. Fairies can be of any
size they like, and you never can tell what size
they are going to be, from one minute to an-
other. They can be giants, if they like. And

The Stars m the Water 197

as soon as they had Kathleen with them they
could make her of any size they hked too. So
as long as she was among them they could keep
her and themselves just the same size, or as near
to it as they liked.

But when fairies are not taking the trouble
to be of any particular size — when they are let-
ting themselves alone, as you might say — then
they are about six inches tall. And I think that
is a very good size to be. It would be better if
you were of that size. You wouldn't eat so
much and you wouldn't be so much in the way,
and you would be much better-looking. Just
think : if your face were only three-quarters of an
inch long, all those features of it that are so dis-
agreeable wouldn't show so plainly. You might
even look rather pretty. You wouldn't need to
be so, but you might look so.

And it would be so much easier to know where
you were, if you were of that size, that it would
save your mother a good deal of trouble. All
she would have to do would be to put you on the
mantelpiece, and then you could not get off with-
out breaking your necks — and that would be
such an advantage. I don't mean that it would
be an advantage to break your necks, because
then who would read this book, and why should
I take all this trouble to write it? I mean, it
would be an advantage that you could not get

198 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

off. Well, now you see how much better off
you would be if you were only six inches tall, and
now you understand about the fairies.

While Kathleen was still wondering at the
place that she was in, a man whom she had not
seen before came up to her. He wore a crown,
and she guessed at once that he was some sort of
king. It did not surprise her to see a man with
a crown. A man with a church steeple on his
head would not have surprised her, by this time.
"Come with me," he said; "you're wanted at
once."

Kathleen followed him to the opposite side of
the hall and through a door, into another room.
It was much smaller than the hall, but it was
just as beautiful, in its own way. There was a
■woman in this room — another of the beautiful
girls, Kathleen would have said — lying on a gold
couch. Her hair was hanging down over the
pillow on which her head lay, so that Kathleen
could scarcely tell which was the hair and which
was the gold of the couch. There was a crown
lying on a little table beside her, and so Kath-
leen guessed that she was the Queen. " Kath-
leen," said the Queen, " do you know why they
have brought you here?"

"No, Your Majesty," said Kathleen. She
was not a bit frightened, any more than she had

The Stars hi the Water 199

been all along, and she knew that that was the
way to speak to a queen, just as well as if she had
never spoken to anybody else in her life.

'' They brought you here, then," said the
Queen, '' to take care of my baby; but he'll not
need you long, and then you can be going back
home."

'Tm afraid," Kathleen said, ''that I don't
know how to take care of a baby very well. I
might do something wrong with it. You see
my mother died when I was born, and so I was
the only baby that there ever was at our house,
and I have hardly ever had anything to do with
a real live baby."

" You've had something to do with them
that was not alive, haven't you?" the Queen
asked.

Kathleen smiled a little at that. " There were
fifteen of them, I think," she said.

" Well, you'll be having no more trouble with
this one," the Queen said, '' than with any of
those fifteen. Only do as you're told. I can't
take care of it myself, because it's the law that
it must have a nurse that's a mort — I mean it
must have a nurse from outside this place.
There's the baby in the cradle there. Try can
you make him go to sleep."

Kathleen went to the cradle and looked at the
baby. It was wide awake and it stared at her

200 Fairies mid Folk of Irelmid

like a little owl. Except for that, it looked like
any other baby. The way that the baby stared
at her came nearer to making Kathleen afraid
than anything that she had seen yet. But she
took him out of the cradle, sat down on a low
seat that she found, began to rock him gently,
and sang an old song that her grandmother used
to sing to her and that she had sung to her own
fifteen babies many a time.

It was scarcely an instant before the baby was
asleep. She put him back into the cradle and
then turned to the Queen and said : '' Shall I
do anything more?"

'' Not now;," said the King; " come now and
have something to eat and drink w^ith us."

The Queen started at this and cried : " No,
no ! " but Kathleen did not know what she
meant. She knew that she was very hungry,
and she followed the King out of the room, back
into the hall. Tables had been brought into the
hall now; and they w^ere all covered with things
to eat that looked very good, and the men and
women were sitting at the tables, eating and
drinking and talking and laughing. They all
stood up as the King came in, and waited till he
had taken his place at the head of the table, and
then they all sat down again, and the eating and
drinking and talking and laughing w^ent on.

One of the men led Kathleen to a seat and

The Stars in the Water 201

put something to eat and drink before her. She
did not know what it was, but it looked good.
She was just going to taste it, when somebody
touched her on the shoulder and somebody said :
" Don't eat that; don't taste a bit of it."

She looked around and saw a boy — perhaps
she would have said a young man — standing
behind her. He was very different from all the
other men. He did not look old, as they did.
She thought that he was of about her own age,
and he was taller than she, while all the others
were shorter. " Don't eat anything or drink
anything that they give you," he said again.
'' I will give you something to eat."

He sat down beside her and put a little pack-
age on the table before them. He opened it
and took out some bread and meat, some straw-
berries, a little flask full of cream, and a larger
one full of water. He gave Kathleen a part of
all these and kept a part for himself. " I am not
sure," Kathleen said, " that I ought to let you
talk to me, because, you see, I don't know who
you are."

She had let several people talk to her that
evening, without knowing who they were, but
this boy seemed to be somehow altogether dif-
ferent.

'' My name is Terence," he said. " Now I
know you are going to ask 'Terence what?'

202 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

It's Terence nothing; I have no name at all ex-
cept Terence."

" I know a boy named Terence," Kathleen
said, " and I don't like him a bit."

" I hope that won't make any difference about
your liking me," said the boy.

"Oh, not at all," said Kathleen. "It isn't
his name that I don't Hke; it's himself. He is
only just as old as I am, and he looks — " Kath-
leen stopped, surprised at herself, for she had not
thought of it before. " He looks a little like
these men here, who all seem to be so old; and,
besides, he isn't nice at all."

" Then let's not talk about him," said the boy.
" Will you tell me what your name is? "

" Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? My name is
Kathleen O'Brien."

" And must I call you Kathleen or Miss
O'Brien? You see you will have to call me by
my first name, because it is the only one I have,
and so I think you ought to let me call you by
your first name."

" But if you have only one name," Kathleen
said, " it is your last name just as much as it is
your first, so perhaps you ought to call me by my
last one."

"Oh, no," Terence answered; "you see my
name ought to be a first name, only I haven't
any last one, so I think I ought to call you by
your first one."

The Stars in the Water 203

Kathleen did not say that he might, but he
afterward did. She thought that it would be
better to change the subject. " It's just as if we
were at a picnic and had brought our own
luncheon, isn't it?" she said. ''And all these
other people are eating just as if they were at
home. Why don't we do the same w^ay they
do?"

" Because," Terence said, " we are not Hke
them. We mustn't talk about it aloud. You
see they are the Good People, and we are not. I
don't know what I am at all, but you are like the
people outside. I knew that as soon as I saw
you, and I saw that they were going to let you
eat their food. I almost wish I had let you do it
now — no, I don't wish so, either. It would be
mean to let you, and I don't want you to, any-
way. You did come from outside, didn't you?
Well, then, you must not eat or drink the least
bit of anything while you are here, except what
I bring you. All that I bring you is from out-
side. If you eat a crumb or drink a drop of any-
thing that they have here, you can never get out
again."

"But they all get out," said Kathleen.
" They were all outside when I saw them
first."

" Oh, yes," Terence answered, *' they are dif-
ferent. They can go out and come in whenever

204 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

they like; but if anybody from outside eats any-
thing here, he can never go out again. It is that
way with me, too, for I am different from the
Good People, though I don't know whether I
came from outside or not."

'' You don't know whether you came from
outside or not? "

" No. I came here when I was a little baby.
I have often asked them how I came here, but
they never would tell me. I have lived here
ever since I can remember. Have you a father
and a mother? "

'' My mother is dead," Kathleen answered;
" I have a father."

" Yes," said Terence, as if he were trying to
work out a puzzle. " Nearly all the people out-
side seem to have fathers and mothers. I never
had either. I have always lived here, but no-
body here is my father or my mother, and I don't
know how I came here. I have been here so
long, and yet it seems so strange to me. This
is my only home, and yet I never feel at home in
it. I always feel as if I belonged somewhere
else. I see the people outside and I feel as if
I belonged with them more than here, yet I
have never been outside this place one single
night."

"You go out often in the daytime, then?"
Kathleen asked.

The Stars in the Water 205

'' Oh, yes; I go out every day, almost, and I
go to school. Have you been to school? "

" Why, of course," Kathleen answered;
'' doesn't everybody have to go to school? "

"These people here never go to school," Ter-
ence said. '' I am the only one who goes, and
then I have to try to teach them what I have
learned. Do you go home from school and try
to teach your father what you have learned? "

"Why, no, indeed," said Kathleen; ''what a
funny idea! "

" Sometimes it seems funny to me too," Ter-
ence said, '' but you see I can't tell whether it is
funny or not, because I know so little about the
people outside. I don't like to ask them, be-
cause they would think it was so strange that I
didn't know; but it is different with you. You
have come in here, and I can ask you things
that I wouldn't ask of people outside."

'' If they want to know things," said Kath-
leen, '' why don't they go to school themselves? "

" I don't know that, either," said Terence,
'' but they seem to expect me to go to school for
all of them. I think that is what I am here for.
Before I was old enough to go to school at all
they used to bring me things to eat from outside,
because, you know, if I ate anything of theirs I
never could go out. Then as soon as I was old
enough to go to school, they sent me, and I

2o6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

came back every night, and they gave me money
to buy all my own food outside, and I have done
that ever since, and I have never eaten a bit of
the Good People's food."

'* And don't you like to stay here? " Kathleen
asked. " It seems to me a very beautiful place."

" No," said Terence; " they are very kind to
me, but I think that I should like to live outside
better, and I hope that I shall some time. And
then, you see, if I ate anything here I could not
go out to go to school, and so I could not teach
them. And it is all so strange. It almost
makes me cry, it is such a bother sometimes, and
then they are so sorry about it themselves and I
am so sorry for them, and it almost makes me
laugh sometimes, because they can never learn
anything. You v^ill see. I think it is time
nov^."

Some of the men were taking away the tables.
" It is time for the lesson," the King called out.
Some of the other men brought in a big black-
board and set it up. Everybody stopped talking
and laughing and stood near the blackboard.
Terence made some lines and some letters on
the board, with a piece of chalk.

" I shall have to try again," said Terence, " to
prove to you the same thing that I tried to prove
to you last night. But I'll try a different way,
and maybe you'll see it better. Now mind,

The Stars in the Water 207

what I am to prove is this: if any triangle has
two sides equal, the angles opposite those sides
are also equal."

^* And what difference does it make if they're
equal or not?" said one of the men who stood
near Kathleen.

" Be still there," the King said; " do we want
to make telephones or do we not? And sure
we can't make telephones without geometry.
Hasn't Terence told you that? "

Terence went on : " Let ABC be any tri-
angle in which the sides AB and AC are equal."

" How can it be any triangle, when it's only
one triangle? " said another of the men.

'' Keep your silly head shut," said the King.
" Terence didn't say it was any triangle; he said
let it be. Now will you let that triangle be, or
will I come over there and make you let it be? "

The man said nothing more and Terence went
on : " Now, consider this triangle as two tri-
angles, BAC and CAB."

'' How can it be two triangles," another of the
men said, "when it's only one triangle?"

''Will you be still there?" the King said.
"Terence doesn't say it's two triangles; he
says you're to consider it. Will you consider
that triangle two triangles, or will I come over
there and make you consider it two triangles? "

" I'll consider it seven triangles, if you like,

2o8 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Your Majesty," the man answered, " but I dunno
what good it'll do me."

'' Then consider it," said the King, '' and don't
talk about it. Go on, Terence."

" Now, you see that since the sides AB and AC
in each triangle are equal, AB and AC in the
first are respectively equal to AC and AB in the
second, and the angles between these sides are
equal. So the two triangles are equal, by previ-
ous proposition. And so the angles of one are
equal to the angles of the other, where they are
opposite the equal sides; that is, the angle ABC
is equal to the angle ACB, being opposite the
equal sides AC and AB, by the same previous
proposition, and that is what I was to prove."

The King looked at the men with triumph in
his eye. " There, you blackguards," he said,
'' do you understand it at all, now that Terence
has made it clear to you? "

One by one the men and women began slowly
to shake their heads. Not one of them under-
stood it. '' Well, Terence," said the King, shak-
ing his own head, " I dunno how it is; nobody
could be asking you to make it any clearer than
you have, and yet I'm obliged to say there's
never a bit of it I understand myself. Maybe
to-morrow^ night you'll be able to make us see it
clearer."

Terence had come back to where Kathleen

The Stars in the Water 209

was. '' Isn't it funny," he said, " and yet isn't it
a pity? I try to teach them as well as I can, but
they never can understand at all."

" And do you mean to say," said Kathleen,
'' that you haven't got any farther in geometry
than that? Why, that's only the fifth proposi-
tion of the first book."

" Of course I've got farther than that," Ter-
ence answered, " but they haven't, and they
never will. I have been trying to teach them
that proposition — oh, I don't know how long —
and they never will learn it in the world. They
want to learn to build railways and bridges and
all sorts of things, but how can anybody even get
ready to build a railway or a bridge till he's got
over this bridge and the rest of the geometry?
I don't know whether I can ever learn it all my-
self, but I'm going to the School of Engineering
up at the University, next spring, to learn chem-
istry, and qualitative analysis, and calculus, and
analytical mechanics, and graphical statics, and
metallurgy, and thermodynamics, and hydraul-
ics, and a lot of other things. But these people
here will still be at w^ork on this same triangle
years after I am dead, if they have anybody to
teach them."

'' Now, Terence, my boy," said the King,
" there's one thing you can do for us we can
understand. Give us a tune out of the fiddle."

2IO Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Kathleen was startled to hear this boy named
Terence asked to play on the fiddle, just as if he
had been the other Terence whom she knew.
She wondered if he played like the other Ter-
ence. She scarcely dared wait to hear, and she
felt as if she should like to run away, only she
did not know where to run.

But she did not think any more about running
after Terence began to play. This was different.
And yet in one way it was the same. For the
music that Terence was playing was just the
music that the other Terence often played and
just what most people liked to hear him play
best, though Kathleen had always liked it as
little as anything else that he did. She had
never heard anyone else play it till now. And
now it was so different. She could scarcely tell
the difference, and yet she could feel it in every
clear note that Terence drew out with his bow.

When she was a little girl, almost as long ago
as she could remember, she used to say, when
the other Terence played this very music, that it
did not mean anything. But now it meant
something. Meant something! It meant —
everything, Kathleen thought, and yet she could
not tell at all what it meant. It was not happi-
ness that it meant, and it was not sorrow; it was
not merry, and it was not grave. Sometimes it
was light and gentle and sweet, and flowed along

The Stars in the Water 2 1 1

as if it were a little fountain of music, bubbling
and bubbling out of a hidden place; then it would
be slower, but fine and firm, and full and free and
true. It seemed to Kathleen to mean so much,
and yet she could not tell what, except that
there was something like a deep longing that
went all through it.

And that made her think of the other Ter-
ence's music again, for she remembered now,
though she had never thought of it before, that
there was a longing in his music too. Perhaps
she had done wrong, she thought, to say that it
did not mean anything. Still, this was so differ-
ent. If the other Terence's fiddle had ever
seemed to be longing for anything, it had seemed
to be hopeless, and the fiddle always seemed to
be bitterly laughing at those who were listening
to it and thinking that it was so fine. She had
never thought of anything like this before, but
it seemed clear to her now, Hstening to the same
music played so differently. For now, below all
the longing and sounding through it, there were
strength and hope and life and faith in some-
thing good.

I do not say that Kathleen thought all this out
while she was listening. She only felt the most
of it. But she felt it so much that she scarcely
knew what she was doing, and she moved by
little and little toward Terence, till she was nearer

212 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

to him than anybody else, and looked at him as
if he were something more wonderful than she
had ever seen before, till she found that she could
not look at him, because her eyes were wet.
And then the music stopped.

Then said the King : " I said that was some-
thing that we could understand, Terence, but I
dunno if it is. It's the wonderful player you are
all out, but I never heard you play like that be-
fore, and I think there's something in it that's
more than I can find out. That's enough of it
for to-night."

Terence had already come back to Kathleen.
She could scarcely speak to him even yet.
" Who taught you to play like that? " she said.

" I don't quite know," he answered, " whether
anybody taught me. They taught me to play
here, and the music that I just played is their
music, but I don't play it the way they do. I
don't know why that is. Just as soon as they
had taught me so that I could play at all, I began
to play in my own way. Their music is sweet
and bright and merry and sparkling, and some-
times it seems to be sad, but it never means any-
thing."

Kathleen was startled again to hear Terence
say the very words that she had said so many
times about the other Terence's music. '' But
I never played before in my life," Terence went

The Stars in the Water 213

on, " the way I have been playing just now. I
think it w^as because you were here. You un-
derstood, and so I thought of nothing but you
all the time that I was playing, and I think it
made me play better. They never understand.
They love music and they hate geometry, but
they understand one just as well as the other."

The King came up to Kathleen and said :
" It is time for you to come and be looking after
the child again."

Kathleen went with him and he led her back
into the room where the Queen w^as. '' Where
is the box of ointment?" the King said to the
Queen.

" I have it here under my pillow," the Queen
answered; " come here and get it, Kathleen."

The Queen took something from under her
pillow and held it so that Kathleen had to come
close to her to get it. '' Did you eat anything? "
the Queen asked, as Kathleen bent over her.

Kathleen did not quite know whether she
ought to answer or not, but the Queen looked at
her so kindly that she thought that there could
be no harm, and she said : " Only what Ter-
ence gave me."

" That was right," said the Queen, and then
she went on, speaking louder, so that the King
could hear : " Take this box of ointment. In
the morning, as soon as the baby is awake, take

214 Faiines and Folk of Ireland

him out of the cradle and wash him, and then just
touch his eyes with this ointment; but be careful
that you do not touch your own eyes with it."

Kathleen took the box, which seemed to be
of solid gold, and looked at it. What was in it
looked like a soft, green salve. She slipped it
into the pocket of her gown. " How shall I
know when it is morning? " she asked. It
seemed to her that here under the hill there
would not be much difference between night and
day.

" You'll know it's morning when the child
wakes up," the Queen said; " or when you wake
up yourself, for that matter. You can go to bed
now. There's your bed, next to the cradle."

The King left them, and Kathleen, who was
really very tired, lay down on another gold
couch, almost like the Queen's, that had been
placed near the cradle, and in a minute she was
asleep.

It seemed scarcely another minute before she
was awake again. She remembered that the
Queen had said that when she awoke it would be
morning, and she looked to see if the baby was
awake too. He was, and she took him out of
the cradle. Then she saw a large gold basin
full of water. She washed the baby in it, and he
stared at her all the time, with big, owlish eyes.
Then she took the box of ointment out of her

The Stars in the Water 215

pocket. She touched it with her finger and
then touched each of the baby's eyes with it.
Instantly his eyes looked brighter and deeper,
and instead of staring at her stupidly, as they had
done before, they seemed to look straight
through her. Nothing had frightened her at all,
and now she was getting so that nothing startled
her. So she only laid the baby back in his cradle
and put the box of ointment into her pocket.

In a moment the King came in and said it was
time for breakfast. He and the Queen went out
into the hall together and Kathleen followed
them. As soon as she was in the hall she saw
Terence. He was looking for her and they sat
down and ate breakfast together. Then Ter-
ence went away.

All day, except when it was time for meals,
Kathleen sat with the Queen or looked after the
baby, though there was really nothing to do for
him. Whenever it was time for a meal they
went out into the hall, and there Kathleen always
found Terence, and she always ate with him, and
ate only what he brought her.

In the evening the King came to her and said,
" Kathleen, it is time for us to go and dance
again; come with us."

Then Terence took her by both hands and
said, '' Don't go with them; don't go; if you do,
I am afraid that you will never come back."

2i6 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" Of course I shall come back," she said;
" you have been very kind to me, and I would
come back to see you again, if it was for nothing-
else. And then I don't know whether I must
do anything more for the baby. And then — "
Kathleen stopped short as she thought. " I
ought not to come back — not to-night! I
ought to go home ! Oh, how anxious my father
and my grandmother must be about me! I
have been here all night and all day, and they
must think that I am dead. And I have not
thought of them the whole time. I am wicked
to have stayed here so long."

" Then you will not come back," Terence said.
'' You know why I brought you all that you have
had to eat and to drink. It was so that you
might leave this place. I might have let you
eat their food, and then you could never leave
it, unless to go out with them and dance on their
green and then come back again. I made it so
that you could go, and now you will go and you
will not come back."

'' I will come back," Kathleen answered, " but
I must see my father and my grandmother and
tell them that I am safe. Perhaps I will come
back to-morrow, if I can, but I will come back.
I would come back just because you wanted to
see me, you have been so good to me. It was
very good of you, if you wanted me to stay, to

The Stars in the Water 217

bring me the things to eat and drink, so that I
could go if I liked."

*' No, it was not good of me at all," Terence
answered; " I had no right to let them keep you
here always, even if I wanted you to be here.
But I hoped and I always hope that I shall leave
this place some time myself, and I did not want
to have to leave you here. I would not have left
you here. Promise that you will come back."

" I will come back," Kathleen answered.

" Come along now," said the King, hurrying
up to Kathleen again. '' It's time we were
dancing this minute."

All the little men and women were moving
out of the hall and Kathleen went with them.
In an instant they were again in the passage that
Kathleen remembered. The floor was of gold,
like the floor of the hall, and then she saw that
she was walking on the water once more. The
yellow glow was under it still, but fainter than in
the hall. The violet light on the walls of the
passage grew dimmer; she saw the lights that
the men and women carried, shining ahead of
her and all around her. Then she looked down
at the water and saw the stars shining up
through it, as if there were another sky far down
under her feet. And then — she felt the cool,
fresh breath of the outside air, and it was de-
licious to her, and she was standing on her own

2i8 Fairtes and Folk of Ireland

little pool, and -deep down under it there were
thousands of stars. She and all the others
walked — or drifted, as it seemed to Kathleen —
up the bank of sweet-smelling new grass, to the
little hollowed place, with the trees and the
bushes growing around it and hanging over it,
where Kathleen had first seen the Good People.
And then they began the dance.

IX

A YEAR AND A DAY

When Kathleen did not come home at the
time she was expected, her father and her grand-
mother were not much surprised at first. She
was in the habit of going where she pleased and
of coming back when she pleased. If she chose
to be an hour or two late her father or her
grandmother might ask her why, or they might
not think of it. So, on that May Eve when she
danced with the Good People, as it began to get
late and still she did not come, they had no doubt
that she had decided to make her visit at the Sul-
livans' a little longer than she had intended.
When it got later and still she did not come, her
father said that he would walk over to the Sul-
livans' and come back with her. He never
thought of not finding her there. Even when
he got there and Ellen told him that Kathleen
had gone away hours ago and had said that she
219

2 20 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

was going home, he did not think that any
harm could have come to her.

*' She met some of the girls that she knew and
went with them, maybe," he said, " and she'll
be home before me."

But when he got home again and found that
she was not there, and when he told his mother
that she was not at the Sullivans', they both be-
gan to be a little worried. They told each other
over and over that Kathleen knew how to take
care of herself and that no harm was likely to
come to her, but they both doubted their own
words. Late at night John went to the SuUivans'
again, taking the way that he thought Kathleen
would be likely to take, and looking everywhere
for her, though he knew that to search for her in
such a way as that was nonsense.

" The Sullivans had all gone to bed when he
got there, but Peter got up and walked back
with him, by another way. They went to a
police station and asked if there had been any
accident — if any girl had been hurt and taken to
a hospital. There had been no accident that
night. They went home and waited again. At
last John could wait no longer. He and Peter
started out again and went different ways.
They went to other poHce stations and asked if
there had been accidents. There had been one
or two, but nobody at all like Kathleen had had

A Year and a Day 221

anything to do with them. They went to hos-
pitals and asked about all the new patients.
There was not one of them that was at all like
Kathleen.

It does not belong to the story to tell how they
went on searching. All the next day they
searched. They tried every way that they knew,
and every way that the police knew, and every
way that anybody could think of, to find her, and
there was no trace. Late that day one of the
girls who had walked through the Park with
Kathleen came to see her, not knowing that she
was lost. Then she told where she had seen
Kathleen last. She told how Kathleen had
dropped behind the others, though she had said
that she wanted to get home early, how they had
called to her, how she had answered, and how
they had gone on, thinking that she would soon
follow.

Then Mrs. O'Brien said to John: "You do
not need to search for her any longer. She is
w^ith the Good People. I have seen that place
often, and it always looked to me like a place
where the Good People might be. Last night
was May Eve. There is no time in the whole
year when the Good People have more power,
and especially to carry off young girls. They
have taken her with them. Some time she may
come back, or some time we may get her back,

222 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

but it is of no use for you to search for her any
more."

But John went on searching still. The next
day and for many days he looked for her and
tried every means to find her, but she could not
be found. Again and again his mother told him
that it was of no use, but still he said: "It
might be some use, and I wouldn't be easy if I
didn't try."

By and by there came a time when even John
did not think that there was any use in trying
longer. He read many papers, from many dif-
ferent cities, hoping always to find something
about some unknown girl who had been found,
sick or hurt or helpless, somewhere, but he said
little about her. He went on wath his old work,
and he and his mother were alone and lonely in
the house. Then John came to believe that
Kathleen was dead. He told his mother this
and she answered : " Kathleen is not dead."

" And how do you know that, mother? " John
said. '* You always say that the Good People
took her away, but that might be true, and still
she might be dead by now. And the Good
People might not have taken her at all. How
do you know? "

'' I don't know that the Good People took
her," she answered, "though I think they did;
but I am sure she is not dead."

A Year and a Day 223

" And how are you sure, mother? "

" Kathleen could never die," Mrs. O'Brien
said, '' without I'ld hear the banshee."

'' The banshee? " said John. '' There's no
banshee here. There's banshees only in Ire-
land."

" Our banshee is here," his mother answered.
*' I know she is here. You've heard me tell of
her. She's the sad, mourning woman of the
Good People that weeps and wails about the
house when anybody of the family is to die, any-
where in the world. It's true, as you say, that
the banshees mostly stay in Ireland, though they
are heard to cry and moan for those of the family
who are to die in any part of the world. But
sometimes the banshee leaves Ireland with the
family that she belongs to, and so did ours.
Wouldn't I know her voice? Didn't I hear her
wail and scream before your father died, so
many, many years ago? Oh, I'ld never forget
it. I'ld know her voice."

" Then why didn't you hear her," John asked,
" before Kitty died, and why didn't you know
before that she was to die? "

" I did hear the banshee that time," his mother
answered, " but I couldn't tell that it was Kitty
that was to die. It was the night before she
died. I heard a little moan, that was more like
the wind than anything else, and then it grew

2 24 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

louder, and it was a sob and a soft wail. It did
not grow very loud. Then I could hear that it
was like the keen that the women cry over the
dead at home. I knew that it was the banshee.
No, I could not be wrong about her; I had heard
her before. But I never thought of Kitty then.
I thought : * I'm an old woman — an old woman
— though I would never let them say so; and
now my time has come. I shall soon be with
him again. If I could only see a child of John's
and Kitty's before I go, Fid go gladly. If I
could only say to him : '' Before I came to you
I held John's and Kitty's child in my arms,"
then rid go gladly.' That was what I said to
myself that time. But it was Kitty that the
banshee meant. And now, though I felt then
the first time that I was an old woman, here I am
still, and Kitty is gone and the child is grown up
to be a woman and she is lost. But she is not
dead, John; she is not dead. Kathleen couldn't
die without I'ld hear the banshee."

It was not once only that John and his mother
talked together in some such way as this. It
was a dozen times at least, perhaps two dozen
times, that she told him that, whatever had come
to Kathleen, she was not dead — that she could
not be dead, because the banshee had not
moaned and cried about the house, as she was
sure to do before any one of the O'Briens could

A Year and a Day 225

die. And so John, seeing his mother careworn
and anxious, but never so full of sorrow as him-
self, came to think that he ought to bear it bet-
ter, and not let her see him always so troubled
and so sad. Yet he could not believe all that
his mother said quite as she believed it, and she
had to tell him all of it again and again, and she
told him, too, that when the time came she
meant to try to get Kathleen back from the Good
People. And after a while John did not think
every time that he heard anybody at the door
that it was Kathleen at last, and all in the house
went on as it had gone before, only that Kath-
leen was not there. But that " only " was
enough, and it was a different house.

The dreadful spring was past; the horrible,
dull, anxious summer was gone; the cruel, chilly
autumn went by; the cold, dead, heartless winter
dragged through; another spring came, cheer-
less, hopeless, helpless, like the last.

" Shaun," said Mrs. O'Brien, " do you know
when it was that Kathleen went away? "

'' Could I ever forget? " said John.

''When was it?"

" It was May Eve."

" And what is to-day, John? "

" It's the last day of April," John answered;
'' it's a year this night she's been away. Could I
forget it? Don't I think of it all the time? "

2 26 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" There's no time in the year," Mrs. O'Brien
said, '' when the Good People have more power
than on May Eve."

" Oh, mother," said John, " don't talk to me
of the Good People; I've heard too much of
them. I don't care if there are any Good People
or not. I only know that Kathleen has been
from us a year. When her mother died I could
bear it, because I had Kathleen left, but now
she's gone, and how can I bear it? "

" Listen to me, John," his mother went on.
** It's on May Eve, as I told you, that the Good
People have great power. It's then that they
dance, and then they make young girls or young
men that they want come and dance with them,
and then they carry them off. But it's on May
Eve, too, sometimes, that they can be got back
by those who know what to do. And so it's to-
night that we must try to get Kathleen back. I
wouldn't tell you till the time came, for fear you
might hope too much. We may not find her,
and then we may, and you must come with
us, for we don't know how much help we'll
need."

" Who is it that I must come with? " John
asked.

" With me and with the girls that were with
Kathleen that night and saw her last."

" How do we know that they can come? " said

A Year and a Day 227

John. " It's late in the day now, and they may
be away from home."

" I've taken care of all that," Mrs. O'Brien
said; " they'll be here in a little while to go with
us."

In a little while the girls came. Then they
and Mrs. O'Brien and John went together to the
place where Kathleen had met the girls, on her
way home from the Sullivans', a year ago.
'' Was it about this time of the day," Mrs.
O'Brien asked, " that you met Kathleen here a
year ago to-night? "

** It was," one of the girls said, '* about this
time."

'' Then you must take us," Mrs. O'Brien went
on, " just the way that you went, and show us
the very place where Kathleen stood, the last
instant that you saw her."

They all walked along through the Park, the
girls leading the way. " How can they find the
very place again? " said John. *' It's been a year
since then. It's likely they have forgot the spot.
How could they remember it so long? "

" John," said his mother, "" will you never
trust me? Do you think that I've been waiting
for them to forget all this time? The very even-
ing after Kathleen was lost they brought me here
and then took me to the very spot where they
saw her last. They talked of it between them-

2 28 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

selves and decided just where it was, and many a
time since they've been with me here, so that
they could not forget it."

In a few minutes the girls stopped. " This is
the place where we saw her last," they said; " just
here. She stood here and seemed to be looking
at something there on the grass."

Mrs. O'Brien whispered: "Stand still here,
all of you, and do not speak or stir unless I call
to you; then do whatever I tell you, and do it
quickly."

Mrs. O'Brien drew out something which was
hung about her neck, by a chain, under her
gown. She held it before her in her hand. She
stepped upon the grass and looked all around
her. She went a few steps forward and looked
around again. She went a little to the left, then
a little more to the right. And then, to those
who were watching, it seemed as if she saw
something, though they could see nothing but
her. For she made a few hurried steps and then
put out her left hand, as if to take hold of some-
thing. Then they saw her raise her right hand,
as if to touch the something that she had taken
hold of, with what she held in it. Still they
could see nothing except her, but now she hur-
ried toward them, and suddenly they saw that
she was leading Kathleen, with her left arm
around her and holding her right hand against
her forehead.

A Year and a Day 229

'' Take her and go home with her," she said to
John, '' as quickly as you can. The rest of us
will follow."

'' Oh, father," said Kathleen, '' I am so glad
that you came to meet me! Have you and
grandmother been worried about me all day?
I was afraid you would be, but the baby needed
me, and I couldn't send any word to you. And
I promised Terence that I would come back —
not Terence Sullivan, but the Terence that lives
in there. Please ask some of the Good People
to tell him that I will come back to-morrow.
Then I will go home with you."

'' Take her home ! Take her home ! " her
grandmother cried. And John led her away as
fast as he could, while the rest followed.

No one said anything more till they were at
home, for it was only a little way. Kathleen
scarcely looked at her father till they came into
the house, where it was light. " Why, father,"
she said, " what makes you look so queer? You
look so much older than you did yesterday, and
you — oh, I am afraid you were dreadfully wor-
ried about me. I didn't think you would be —
such a little while. I forgot that you would be
worried. There w^as so much to see there, and
then I had to take care of the baby — and so I
forgot. It was very wrong for me to forget, and
I am so sorry you were anxious about me. But I

230 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

thought of you and grandmother just as we were
coming out to dance to-night, and as soon as we
were done dancing I was coming home. And
why were you all there where we were dancing?
Did you think that I would be there? You
ought not to have been afraid, father. It was
just such a little while."

John did not seem to think anything about its
being wrong for Kathleen to forget. He did
not seem to think of anything but that she had
come back. '' Just a little while, do you call it? "
he said. '' Do you call a year a little while for
you to be away from me, Kathleen? And from
your grandmother? Don't you see how she has
worried about you, too, all this long year? And
what could I think but that you was dead?
Your grandmother never thought so, but I could
think nothing else."

" A year ! " Kathleen cried. *' What do you
mean, father? What do you mean? Oh,
grandmother, is there anything wTong? Has he
been sick? What is it?"

'' Be quiet, John," said Mrs. O'Brien, " and
let me talk with Kathleen. Come here, Kath-
leen. No, there is nothing wrong, dear. Now
listen, and answer what I ask you. When did
you see your father and me last before to-
night?"

'' Why, you know that, grandmother," Kath-

A Year and a Day 231

leen answered. '' I saw father yesterday morn-
ing, and I saw you yesterday afternoon, when I
left you to go to the Sullivans'."

" And where have you been since then? " Mrs.
O'Brien asked.

Kathleen closed her eyes and clasped her
hands, as she thought of it. '' Oh, it w^as so
wonderful ! " she said. '' I was inside the hill
in the Park. I walked right in there on the
water with the Good People. And it was so
beautiful there — all gold and silver and jewels —
and the music — the music that Terence played!
And I must go back. I promised him I would."

" And how long were you there? " Mrs.
O'Brien asked.

'' All the time," Kathleen said; " all night and
all day; I didn't go anywhere else. And when it
was time for them all to come out to dance to-
night— they were dancing, you know% when I
first saw them, and they asked me to dance with
them, and then I went into the hill with them.
And to-night we came out to dance again, and it
was only a little while when you came, and then
I saw father, and he brought me home. But I
was coming home myself as soon as the dancing
was over."

" Kathleen," said Mrs. O'Brien, '' listen to me
now. Don't be frightened, but listen. You've
been away from us for a whole year. It was a

232 Fairies and Folk of h^ eland

year ago this night that you danced with the
Good People that first time. All this year you
have been with them there in the hill. If we
had not gone after you to-night, and if I had not
known how to bring you back, they would have
taken you into the hill for another year, and you
might have stayed there, perhaps, as long as
you lived."

" But, grandmother ! A year ! Why, you
know it was yesterday ! "

" Yesterday was a year ago," her grandmother
said. *' You can't understand it now. Don't
try. You must eat something now, and then
you must go to bed. To-morrow I can tell you
about it better, and then perhaps you can un-
derstand."

But Kathleen could not eat. Her going away
had been so strange, her coming back had been
so wonderful, and what her grandmother had
told her had been so marvelous, that she could
think of nothing else. By and by she went to
her room. W^hile she was undressing she felt
something hard in her pocket. She took it out,
and it was the little box of ointment that the
Queen had given her to put on the baby's eyes.
Now that she was at home again she felt as if she
had dreamed all that she had seen and heard
while she was away. But she had not dreamed
it. Here was this little gold box to prove it.

A Year and a Day 233

Yet she could not believe it. And they told her
that she had been away for a year! What they
said must be a dream too. But here was the
little gold box, just as the Queen had given it to
her. It was a green salve that was in it. She
would open it and see if there really was a green
salve. If there was, then it was not a dream.

She opened it. There was the green salve.
Yes, it was exactly as she remembered it. And
she could remember it all so well. She remem-
bered how the Queen had given it to her, and
surely that was last night. She remembered
how she had touched the baby's eyes with the
salve, and how much brighter they had looked
after she had done it. Surely it was only this
morning that she did that. It seemed to her all
so plain. And they said that it had been a year.
She could not understand it at all. She laid the
little gold box on her bureau, under her glass,
and went to bed.

The next morning Kathleen could think about
things a little more clearly. She could not re-
member what she had seen and heard in the hill
quite so distinctly. She had not forgotten any-
thing, but it all seemed dimmer in her mind than
it had been, as if it were long ago. And still it
seemed as if it had all happened yesterday.
Everybody whom she knew had heard that she
was at home again, and everybody came to see

234 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

her. And they all told her that she had been
away for a year. She could not doubt it any
longer, and yet she could not understand it.
What had she been doing all that time? She
could remember just enough to fill up one night
and one day, and that was all. Could it be that
she had slept for three hundred and sixty-four
days and been awake for only one? No, she
could not believe that. And so, at last, she came
to her grandmother to ask if she could explain
it to her.

" No," the old woman said, " I can't do that.
It's too wonderful for any of us to understand.
But it's no more wonderful than many things
that are true, and I've heard tales of it before.
Often one stays in the land of the Good People,
and in other places, too, and thinks that the time
has been short, w^hen it has been long. Shall I
tell you what happened once to a monk — a holy
man — much more wonderful than w^hat hap-
pened to you?

'' One day this monk was in the garden of the
monastery where he lived, reading in his book.
He was reading in the Psalms, where it says,
* For a thousand years in thy sight are as yester-
day, which is past. And as a watch in the night,
things that are counted nothing, shall their years
be.'

" And he found it hard to believe that even to

A Year and a Day 235

God Himself a thousand years could seem no
more than a day. As he was thinking of this, a
bird in a tree near him began to sing, and the
song was so beautiful that he forgot the psalm
that he had been reading and his thoughts about
it, and only listened to the bird. It seemed to
him that in all his life he had never heard any
music so beautiful.

" But soon the bird f^ew to another tree,
farther from the monastery, and the monk fol-
lowed, to listen to its song again. Then the bird
flew to a tree farther ofif, and still the monk fol-
lowed. Once more the bird flew to another tree,
and once more the monk followed it, for it
seemed to him that as long as that bird sang he
could listen to nothing else and could think of
nothing else. But he saw that the sun had gone
down and he knew that it was time for him to go
back to the monastery. As he went back he
looked at the colors that the sun had left behind
it in the sky, and he thought that they were as
beautiful to see as the voice of the bird was to
hear.

" They were all faded and the darkness had
come on when he reached the monastery and
went in. And if he had wondered at the song of
the bird and at the colors in the sky, he wondered
yet more when he found himself again in the
place where he had lived for many years. For

236 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

many things about the place were changed, and
the men in it were all changed. There was not
one face among them that he knew. One of the
brothers saw him and came toward him, and he
said : ' Brother, why have all these changes
been made here since this morning? And who
are all these whom I do not know? I scarcely
know my own monastery.'

" And the other answered : ' Who are you
that ask this, and why do you come here? For
you wear the dress of our order, but you are a
stranger. You speak as if you knew the place,
yet I myself have lived here for fifty years and I
have never seen you before.'

" Then the monk told his name and told how
he had been at mass in the chapel in the morning
and had then gone into the garden to read.
And he told how he had read in the Psalms, ' A
thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday,
which is past,' and how, while he was thinking
of these words, he had heard the bird singing.
He told how he had followed the bird, till he saw
that night was coming, and then had come back
to the monastery.

" And the other said : ' I remember now that
when I first came into this place they told me of
a legend that a monk of your name had gone out
of this monastery a hundred and fifty years be-
fore, and had never come back and had never

A Year and a Day 237

been heard of again. And now, counting my
own fifty years here, that must have been two
hundred years ago.'

'' Then the monk said : ' God has given me
such happiness as He gives to few until they are
with Him in Heaven, for these two hundred
years have seemed to me to be only a part of a
day. Now hear my confession, for I know that
I soon shall die.'

" So the other monk heard his confession, and
before midnight he died. And this was the way
that God had chosen to show him the meaning
of His word."

It was a pretty story, but Kathleen understood
no more than before. " No," said her grand-
mother, '' you cannot understand, and I cannot.
We live here such a little while and we are so
shut in by time, that we cannot understand how
it is with those who live always. But we shall
understand when the right time comes, and then
we shall wonder how we could ever wonder.
And I will tell you another story about it, not to
make you understand, but to show you how it is.

" Long ago Finn McCool was the great cham-
pion of Ireland. He had many warriors, who
were called Fenians. He had a son, Oisin, who
was a great warrior, too, and besides that a poet
and a minstrel. Some of his poems are left to us
yet. One day the Fenians wxre hunting, when

238 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

they met a beautiful girl riding on a white horse.
She called to Oisin, and he went apart from the
others to speak with her.

" She told him that she w^as the Princess of
Tir-na-n-Oge, and that she had come to take him
there, where she was to be married to him.
* Tir-na-n-Oge ' means ' Land of the Young,'
and they say that nobody ever growls old there.
The Princess was as beautiful as moonlight, and
her voice was as sweet as the wind blowing on a
harp, and Oisin was in love with her and eager to
go before she had done speaking.

** He went back to his father and his compan-
ions and bade them farewell. It was with tears
that Finn said good-by to Oisin, for I think he
knew that he should never see him again. But
Oisin did not know. Then Oisin mounted the
white horse and set the Princess in front of him,
and the horse galloped away toward the west.
In a little while they came to the sea, and the
horse kept straight on, galloping over the
water as if it had been a smooth road. Then
some say that the water rose around them and
covered them and that they were in a beautiful
place under the sea. I am not sure of that.
Lands there are under the sea, they say, and no
doubt there are, but I am not so sure that the
real Tir-na-n-Oge is there.

*' For others say that the tops of blue hills rose

A Year and a Day 239

before them, and changed to green as they came
nearer, and then Oisin saw that soft grass sloped
down to the very water here and there, and in
other places there were tall cliffs, and trailing
vines hung down from the tops of them, covered
with bright flowers, and they swung to and fro
in the light breeze. Beyond there were more
hills, covered with rich woods. Little veils of
mist hid them partly and made them more beau-
tiful, and streams poured down from high places
and looked Hke thin, silky tassels hung upon the
hills, and they waved in the air, like the waving
vines, and some of them seemed never to reach
the ground at all, but to blow away into fine
silver spray and to mix with the mists of the
hills. And golden sunlight poured down over it
all, and there was a warm shimmer in the air that
made it all look like something seen in a dream.
And this was Tir-na-n-Oge.

" The horse came to the shore and galloped
over soft turf till it seemed to Oisin that they
were in the very middle of the island, and there
they came to a palace, and Oisin thought that it
was more beautiful than anything else that he
had seen. It may be that the palace was built
of marble, but to Oisin it seemed Hke blocks of
pure snow. It was so long that one might well
mount his horse to go the length of it, instead of
walking. It had gilded domes that looked like

240 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

suns, with the Hght shining on them, and the
whole palace was dazzling to look at. All
around it were gardens, with trees and plants in
full bloom, of all the colors of the rainbow, and
colors that are not in the rainbow, and other
trees with only deep green leaves, and pathways
among them which led down into cool, shady
hollows, with clear brooks running through them
between banks of soft, dark-green moss, singling
their quiet little song.

'' Oisin got down off his horse and then lifted
the Princess down, and they w^ent into the
palace. There the Princess's father, the King
of Tir-na-n-Oge, made Oisin welcome and led
both of them to the banquet hall, wdiere a great
feast was spread in honor of the Princess and the
new Prince. And Oisin thought that if the
palace was beautiful outside, it was much more
beautiful inside, and as for the table that was
before him, he could not think of any of the best
things in the world to eat and to drink that were
not on it.

" The next day the Princess was married to
Oisin. For a long time Oisin and the Princess
lived in the palace and Oisin thought that he
never could be more happy than he was now.
The old warriors cared much for what they ate
and drank, and Oisin ate and drank better things
than he had ever tasted before. He walked with

A Year and a Day 241

the Princess down through the shady ways
among the trees and across the brooks and up
the hill-sides among the flowers. They sat to-
gether in the garden or in the palace and she
sang to him and told him wonderful tales of
heroes and of princesses of olden times. Some-
times they rode hunting together, and every-
where they found game, the finest that Oisin had
ever seen.

" But at last Oisin began to feel that he cared
less for all these things than he had done at first.
The grass and the flowers and the woods did not
seem so fair to him as they had seemed; the sun-
shine was not such pure gold; he wished that the
silver streams would not blow away in spray and
mix with the mists; he wanted to see them come
down yellow with the earth of the mountains and
plunge into caverns with great rushing and roar-
ing; he felt that the warm air was taking his
strength from him; he no longer liked the rich
feasts that were spread before him every day; he
longed to follow the deer through the w^oods,
with his old friends, to kill it and to cook it and
eat it in the woods, and then to sleep there, under
the trees and the stars; these trees and these gar-
dens were beautiful, it was true, but they were too
beautiful; a hard way through a rough forest
would have pleased him better now; he did not
love the Princess less, but he longed to see his

242 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

father and his men again; her singing was no less
sweet to him than it had ever been before, but he
wished that he could be again where the Fenians,
after a hard day's hunt or a hard day's fight, sat
about the fire in their stronghold, and Hstened to
one of them — perhaps himself, for he was the best
singer of them all — while he sang songs of great
heroes and of great fights.

" And one day, when the Princess had been
singing to him, he took her harp from her and
sang a song of one of his father's battles, a battle
which he had seen himself, where Diarmuid had
slain hundreds, and Orcur had slain hundreds,
and Erin had been kept from her enemies.
Then he said to the Princess : ' Do not think that
I am ungrateful for all the happiness that I have
had here, but I am longing to see Erin again and
to see my father and his men. It is not so beau-
tiful a land as this, but it is my own land, and I
am longing to see it. The air here is sweet and
the sunshine is w^arm, but I should like to breathe
the mists and to feel the chill again, if I could
only see Erin once more ! "

Mrs. O'Brien stopped a moment, with the
way that she had of seeming to look at things far
ofif. Kathleen said nothing when she paused in
this way, and in a minute the old woman went

on:

You would not be so happy in Erin as you

A Year and a Day 243

think,' the Princess answered him. ' This is the
best place for you to stay, and it would break my
heart for you to go.'

" So Oisin said no more then, but the great
longing grew upon him, and every day the de-
lights of Tir-na-n-Oge pleased him less. And
at last he spoke of it again, and asked the
Princess to let him go for a little while. * You
would find Erin changed,' she said, ^ and the
Fenians are all gone. How long have you been
here with me? '

'' ' I cannot tell you to a day,' Oisin answered,
' but I know that it is weeks since I saw my coun-
try and my people.'

'' ' You have been here,' said the Princess,
* for three hundred years.'

" Oisin could not understand it, but he
thought that if he could live so long and not
know that the time had passed, the Fenians, too,
might be living still, and he begged again to be
allowed to go. At last the Princess saw that he
would never be happy unless he went, so she
brought him the same white horse that had
brought them both to Tir-na-n-Oge. ' The
horse,' she said, * will take you to Erin. But you
must sit upon his back and never loose his bridle
or get down upon the ground. If you touch the
ground of Erin you will be at once a weak, old
man, you can never come back to Tir-na-n-Oge.

244 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

you will never see me, and I shall never see you
again. Will you promise me, if I will let you go,
that you will not get ofT the horse's back or let
go his bridle? '

'' Oisin promised and she let him go. Away
over the water the horse galloped again. Tir-
na-n-Oge, with its warm sun and its sweet air,
was left behind. A damp sea-wind came up, and
it blew the salt spray harshly into Oisin's face
as the horse dashed along. It was a joy to him.
No more of the soft comforts of that weary
island. This was something for a man to face.
Yet he did not forget the Princess, and he meant
to go back to her when he had seen his land and
his people once more. Then the clouds and the
fog drifted away and the sun shone out, but still
the salt spray covered him, and he felt stronger
as he made his way against it and felt the great,
free breeze from the east. And now he saw
something hke a little cloud on the horizon, and
it rose higher and grew wider, and then its misty
brown faded away and he saw the beautiful
green shores of Erin."

The old woman paused again and said over
softly to herself: ''The beautiful — beautiful
green shores of Erin."

" The horse and the rider soon reached the
land now. Oisin rode first to the spot where he
had first met the Princess of Tir-na-n-Oge and

A Year and a Day 245

where he had last seen his father and his com-
panions. He did not think to find them there,
but he felt that it was the first place to which he
should go. The forest had been cleared away a
little, and a strange building stood there. It
was a small house, built of stone, and there was
a cross on the top of it. Inside he heard a sound
of singing. He rode to the door and looked in.
There were people kneeling before a man who
stood in a higher place than the rest and held up
a golden cup.

" This was something that Oisin did not un-
derstand, and he rode away, remembering what
the Princess had told him, that he would find
Ireland changed. He wondered if he had been
wise to come at all. But he went on, and now
he rode fast, in this direction and in that, to try to
find the Fenians. Sometimes he asked people
whom he met if they could tell him of his father.
Some of them shook their heads and said that
they knew no such person as Finn McCool.
Others laughed at him. One or two old men
told him that the Fenians had all died long ago,
and that the man of greatest power in Ireland
now w^as Patrick. It was hard for him to be-
lieve. He w^ould have thought himself in a
dream, but a dream seems right and true while
it lasts, and this seemed all wrong and false.
Yet, when he found a place that he knew and

246 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

looked for some familiar stronghold of the
Fenians, he found only a low mound of earth,
grown all over with grass, or perhaps with weeds
and bushes. And everywhere he saw these
houses of stone, with crosses on their tops.

" Then it came into his mind to find this
Patrick of whom he heard so much, and to see
what sort of man was now the greatest in Ire-
land. This was an easier matter than searching
for the Fenians. Everyone knew where the
holy Patrick w^as, and soon Oisin came near the
place and found that the saint was building an-
other of the stone houses. As Oisin came n^ar
he saw some men trying to lift a heavy stone
upon a car, to take it to the new building. It
almost made him laugh to see how small and
weak the men were. He knew well that he
could put the stone on the car alone. It was no
larger than the stones that the Fenians used to
throw for sport.

'' He came near and leaned down from his
saddle to lift the stone for the men. He took
hold of it and began to raise it, but with the
weight the girth of his saddle broke, the saddle
slipped around on the horse, Oisin fell and the
horse ran away. Oisin lay there on the ground
of Erin, which the Princess had forbidden him to
touch, an old man, weak, helpless, blind, hollow-
cheeked, wrinkled, vdiite-haired.

A Year and a Day 247

" The men took him up and carried him to St.
Patrick, who welcomed him kindly and kept
him for a while in his own house. Many times
the saint talked with him and tried to make him
a Christian, but Oisin could think of nothing but
the grand days of the Fenians. When St.
Patrick talked with him he would begin to tell
of these, and he would make the poems about
them that have been kept till now and give us
what we know of Finn McCool and his heroes.
And these poems Patrick would have written
down. And always Oisin was mourning for the
brave old days of Finn McCool or for the days of
Tir-na-n-Oge, which seemed to him now still
farther off.

" Old as he was now, with the heavy weight
of more than three hundred years upon him,
blind and weak, there was one thing in which
Oisin felt himself a better man that St. Patrick or
any of his band. St. Patrick and all those who
were w4th him fasted much, and when they ate it
was frugally, of bread and the herbs of the field,
and but little meat. But this was not enough
for Oisin. He remembered how he and his
fellow-huntsmen used to follow the deer and kill
it, and dress it, and cook it on the moor in the
fresh, cool evening, and feast till it was time to
sleep, and then wake and follow the deer again.
And so the food which w^as given to him in

248 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

St. Patrick's house seemed poor and scanty
to him.

'' He said this to the cook and others in the
house, and they made sport of him, because so
old a man as he should wish to eat so much.
Then he told them tales of the days of his father,
how great and strong the men of Erin were then,
how much more fertile the land was, and of the
great beasts and the great trees and plants and
vines that it brought forth. In those days, he
said, the leg of a lark was as large as a leg of
mutton now, a berry of the wild ash was as
large as a sheep, and an ivy leaf as broad as a
shield.

'' They all laughed at him the more when he
said these things, and they did not believe a word
of it all. ' Alas ! ' he said, ' how can I show you
that what I say is true? The dear heroes whom
I knew are all gone. I am left alone to mourn
for them, among men who do not even believe
how great they were. Everything that I have
found is changed, but there may be something
that is not changed. Will one of you go w^ith
me in a war chariot and drive where I shall tell
him, and let me see if I can find anything as I
knew it once? '

'' Then one of them said that he would go
with him. The next morning they set out.
Oisin told the man where to drive, till they came

A Year and a Day 249

to a place where Oisin said : ' Look around you
and tell me what you can see on the plain.'

'' ' I see a stone pillar,' the man answered.

" ' Drive the chariot to it,' said Oisin, ' and
dig at the foot of the pillar, on the south side
of it.'

'' The man did as Oisin told him, and when he
had dug for a while Oisin asked him if he had
found anything. ' There is something long
and hard here,' said the man, * like a wooden
pole.'

" ' Dig it out,' said Oisin.

'' The man dug more. ' I have it out now,'
he said; ' it is like a great spear, for it has a huge
head of rusty iron. I can scarcely lift it.'

" ' It is a spear such as the Fenians used,' said
Oisin. ' Dig still deeper.'

'' The man dug again. ' Do you find any-
thing more? ' said Oisin.

" ' I have found a great horn,' the man an-
swered, ' many times as large as any horn that
I ever saw.'

" ' It is the great w^ar-horn of my father, Finn
McCool,' said Oisin. ' Dig deeper.'

'' The man dug again and said, ' I have found
a lump of bog butter.'

'' ' Now^ blow the horn,' said Oisin.

'' The man was scarcely able to blow the horn,
but he did blow it, and it gave forth a harsh, ter-

250 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

rible note, which sounded over the plain and was
echoed back from the woods and the rocks with
a hoarse, dreadful sound.

" ' Look about you,' said Oisin, ' and tell me
what you see.'

'' ' Oh, I see,' said the man, ' a great flock of
birds coming toward us, and every one of them
is many times as large as the largest eagle that I
have ever seen. I fear that we cannot escape
them and that they will kill us. The dog is
nearly dead with terror and he is trying to break
his chain.'

" ' Give him a piece of the bog butter,' said
Oisin, ' and let him go. Then tell me what he
does.'

" ' He is running straight toward the birds,'
the man answered, ' and they are coming straight
toward him and toward us, along the ground.
Ah! he has caught one of them, and all the rest
have flown away ! He has killed the bird ! He
is rushing back to us, with madness in his eyes
and his mouth covered with blood and foam ! I
fear that he will be w^orse for us than the birds
would have been.'

" ' Hold the spear straight in front of you as
he comes,' said Oisin, ' and let him run upon the
point of it and kill him.'

" The man held the spear as Oisin told him,
and when the dog came on he was caught upon

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR. LENOX AND
TILOEN FOUNOATIQNS. j

A Year and a Day 251

the point of it, and it went through his heart and
he fell dead.

" Then the man went and cut off one of the
legs of the bird which had been killed, and they
took it with them and started back. As they
went they passed a mountain ash which had ber-
ries of enormous size, and the man put one of
them into the chariot. Then the man saw huge
ivy leaves, and he took one of them too. So
they went back to St. Patrick's house and
showed all the men there what they had brought.
The leg of the bird and the berry and the ivy leaf
were even larger than Oisin had said. And after
that they all believed the stories that Oisin told
them, and all of them agreed that a man who
had lived in the days when there were such trees
and such beasts and such men in Erin should be
his own judge as to how much he needed to eat.
And so after that all of St. Patrick's men treated
him as well as did St. Patrick himself.

'' But Oisin died only a little while after that,
the last of the great heroes of Erin. He had
lived for more than three hundred years, and it
seemed to him no more than the life of a young
man."

X

THE IRON CRUCIFIX

Kathleen had not been at home long, of
course, before Peter and Ellen came to see her,
and Terence came with them. It seemed to
Kathleen that she had never seen him look as he
did then. She had never seen him look so evil
or so crafty or so sad. She felt afraid of him,
because he looked so evil and so crafty, and she
felt sorry for him, because he looked so sad.
She sat in the corner of the room that was
farthest from him, and it was also the farthest
from all the others, as they were all sitting near
together. Then, when all the others were busy
talking among themselves, Terence suddenly
came and sat close to her, and between her and
the others, so that she could not get away from
him.

'' What did you do all the year that you was
inside the hill? " he said.
252

The Iron Crtccifix 253

*' I don't know," Kathleen answered; "it
seemed only a day to me, and I can't remember
and I can't think what it was that I did to fill all
that time."

'' And how did you Hke the fairies? " said Ter-
ence.

" The Good People? They were very kind to
me and I liked them very much, but I wouldn't
have let them keep me — I wouldn't have stayed
— so long, if I had known."

'' You wouldn't have let them? You wouldn't
have stayed? And what would you have
done?"

'' I don't know," said Kathleen.

"And who was there besides the fairies?"
Terence asked.

" Why, there was — oh, I don't want to talk to
you about it, and I don't think you ought to
make me."

" You don't need," said Terence. " I know
who was there. I know who he is and what he
is, and I know the kind of talk that he talked to
you. He made love to you. I know that well
enough. That's what he would do. But do
you mind the promise that your father made to
my father the day after we w^as born? I want
you should remember that promise."

" It was no promise at all," Kathleen said,
" and I won't let you talk to me that way, and I

254 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

don't see that it matters to you what he — what
anybody said to me anywhere, and I won't tell
you any more."

"Ah!" said Terence; "he did make love to
you. And you think you can talk any way you
like to me and you won't let me talk any way I
like to you. Do you know that his staying in
that hill with the fairies depends on me? Do
you know that "

Terence turned to see if anybody else was lis-
tening and saw Mrs. O'Brien looking straight at
him. He stopped short in what he was saying,
and then, speaking lower, he went on : " Don't
dare to tell anybody what I was saying to you;
you don't know what I can do, but I might show
you if I took the notion."

For the rest of the time that he stayed Terence
said not a word, but he sat and stared at Kath-
leen. And now she thought that there was
something more terrible in his look than there
had been before. It seemed to have a kind of
spell about it. Kathleen had a feeling that she
could not move while he looked at her, although
when she tried it she found that she could.

The most natural thing in the world for Kath-
leen to do would have been to tell her grand-
mother about this and about all that Terence
had said to her, but, whether it was because of
the way that Terence had looked at her or for

TJie Iron Crucifix 255

some other reason, she did not tell her. Some-
times after that, when she and Terence met, he
reminded her again of what he called the prom-
ise, but oftener he said nothing, or next to noth-
ing, and only looked at her in that same way, and
then she felt as if she could do nothing of
herself, and that if he told her to do anything,
she would have to do it.

Kathleen did not forget the promise which she
had made to the other Terence in the hill, that
she would come back. She had said that she
would come back to-morrow if she could. But
when to-morrow came, so many people who had
heard that she was at home again came to see
her, that she was not left alone for a moment.
It w^as several days before she could get away
from the house to go where she pleased alone.
Then she went straight to the little pool in the
Park.

If you live in New York, perhaps you w^ould
like to know just where this pool was — and still
is. Well, then — go to the northwest corner of
Central Park and go in by the little gate at the
right of the carriage-drive. Then you will have
to go down a flight of steps. Keep to the right,
along the west side of the Park, and you will
have to go only a few steps till you come to the
pool, which is a little way up the bank, on the
left, with the rocks behind it and the trees around

256 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

it, as I have described it to you before. Then
go back to the path and keep on the way that
you were going, till you have gone up two short
flights of steps. Then, only a few feet farther
on, you will see, on the left, the little, shell-
shaped, grassy slope where Kathleen danced
with the Good People. Seeing these places will
prove to you that this whole story is true.

Kathleen went straight to the pool, as I said,
never thinking but that, when she got there, she
could walk into the hill as easily as she had done
before. But there was no opening at all in the
rocks. They were just as they had always
looked before she went through them with the
Good People. Then she tried to step on the
water, and instead of stepping on it she stepped
into it and wet her foot. She almost concluded
that everything had been a dream after all. She
felt frightened about it, and she hurried home to
look at the little box of green ointment. If she
found it where she had left it, it would prove that
she had really been inside the hill and that it was
not a dream. She ran to her room to look for
it, and there it was just as she had left it. It was
not a dream.

But how was she to keep her promise to Ter-
ence?— the Hill Terence, she called him now,
when she thought of him, so as not to confuse
him with Terence Sullivan. She went to the pool

The Iron Crucifix 257

again and again and tried to find the door in the
rocks open and the water so that she could walk
on it, but she never found them so. Yet she
could not think of any other way to get into the
hill again. After a while it seemed so hopeless
that she gave up going to the pool so often.

Then one day a thought came to her which
made it all seem so simple that she w^as quite sur-
prised at herself for not thinking of it before.
Terence had told her that he came out every day
to go to school. He had said that the next year
he was to go to the School of Engineering at the
University. It was when she first came into the
hill that he told her that, and so it was next year
now. Now the University was not very far
away, up on the hill, beyond the north end of
the Park. She did not know whether there was
any other way to get into the hill than this way
through the rocks behind the pool, but if any-
body were at the University and wanted to get
into the hill, this w^ould surely be the nearest w^ay.
Then she felt sure that if she went to the pool at
the right time of the day she should meet Ter-
ence when he came out or when he went in.

When she thought again she decided that she
would not do anything of the kind. If Terence
wanted to see her, it was his business to find her,
not hers to find him. After that she thought
still more. Terence had no way of finding her.

258 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

She had never told him where she Hved, and he
might spend the rest of his life searching for her
and never find her. And then she had promised
him that she v^ould come back. She had tried
so hard to keep that promise already that most
people would have said it was right for her to
give it up now, but she had a feeling that a prom-
ise which she had made to Terence must be kept.
She said to herself that it was because he had
been so kind to her when she was in the hill.

So she spent all the time she could near the
pool, in the hope of seeing Terence. And what
do you think happened? She did see him.
One afternoon as she was walking along the
same old path toward the gate at the corner of
the Park, she saw Terence come through that
gate and down the steps. And now you will
never in the world guess what she did. I sup-
pose you have believed this whole story till now,
but I am afraid you will not believe this. I
should not believe it myself, if I did not know
that it was so. But there is no doubt about it.
She turned and walked straight back along the
path, and tried to get away without letting Ter-
ence see her. Don't expect me to explain it. I
don't blame you for being surprised. It was
the most wonderful thing I ever heard of. A
sensible girl like Kathleen too !

But Terence had seen her and he walked

The Irofi Crucifix 259

swiftly along the path and overtook her.
'' What makes you try to get away from me? "
he said.

'' I don't know," said Kathleen.

" Didn't you want to see me? " he asked.

"Yes," said Kathleen, ''I wanted— I don't
know — oh, yes, I did want to see you ! How is
the little Prince?"

" The little Prince is very well," said Terence.
" You promised that you would come back,
you know."

•'Yes," said Kathleen, "and didn't I try?
But how could I get through those hard rocks?
I don't suppose it was your fault about the rocks,
though. How are they getting on with their
triangles? "

" They are not getting on at all," Terence an-
swered. " You promised that you would come
back, and then, when you saw me you tried to
run away. What made you do that? "

" Oh, but I tried so hard to find you ! "
Kathleen said. " You don't know how hard
I tried."

" But what made ? "

" I don't know; I just couldn't help it."

You notice how uninteresting Terence and
Kathleen's conversation was getting. They
kept on with it, however, dull as it was. They
turned and went up over the hill to the block-

26o Fairies and Folk of Ireland

house, and then down the steep path on the other
side and back along the north end of the Park.
" Do you come here often? " Terence asked.

" I have been here very often," Kathleen said,
" trying to keep my promise to you."

" I am here," he said, " nearly every day, at
about this time; v^ill you come again? "

" Yes," Kathleen said, " if you would like
me to."

They were close to the pool again now. '' See
that bright star up there in the west? " said Ter-
ence.

Kathleen turned to look at it. " It is Venus,"
she said. Then she turned back toward where
Terence had stood. He was gone. She looked
up and down the path and all around, but she
could not find him. She went up to the pool.
The rocks were just as usual — just as close, just
as hard. She tried the water again to see if she
could stand on it. She could not. Terence was
gone and she went home to think about it.

She thought about it and she thought more
about it, but she could not understand it at all.
So she very sensibly gave up understanding it.
She kept her promise and met Terence again
near the pool. And then she met him again and
a few times more. Every time he would make
her look away from him for a moment, or wait
till she did look away, and when she looked back

The Iron Crucifix 261

he would be gone. It did not take her long to
find out that he did not want her to see him go,
of course, and so one day, when she turned her
head away she turned it back again quickly, and
saw him standing close to the pool with his face
toward the rocks. She watched him for a mo-
ment while he stood there, and neither of them
moved. Then he said, without looking around :
'' Let me go, Kathleen; I can't go while you're
looking."

So she turned away for another instant, and
when she looked again he was gone.

I don't know how many times Terence and
Kathleen strolled about the Park in this way, or
what they talked about, or just how long a time
went by, and I suppose that all these things
interest you as little as they do me. But there
is no doubt that one day, as they were walking
together and talking together of whatever they
found to talk about, they came face to face with
Terence Sullivan. He passed them as if he had
not seen them, but his face was black.

The next day he came to see Kathleen, and he
said to her : '' Do you think I don't know who
that was with you in the Park yesterday? And
does your father know? He will, if I tell him,
and what will he say, do you think, when he
knows that you're meeting that fine boy without
his knowledge? If I see the two of you there

262 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

again I'll tell him, and I'll be watching for you
too. What do you say to that now? "

" I say nothing to it," Kathleen answered;
'' what did you think I would say? "

'' What did I think you would say? What did
I think you could say? Nothing, of course.
And is that all you say? "

" That is all," said Kathleen.

And that was all. He tried his best to get
her to say more, but she would not. But it did
not take her a minute to think what to do. And
it was so simple that she wondered why she had
never thought of it before. It was a wonder,
too, that Terence Sullivan did not think of it
himself and know that she would do it. But
he was not clever in some ways, though he was
so clever in others.

The next day Kathleen met Terence in the
Park, and she said to him : '' Terence, we must
not stay here for a single minute. You must
come straight home with me. I want you to see
my father and my grandmother."

And Terence went straight home with her and
she told her grandmother who he was — and in-
deed she had told her of him before — and that
she had met him in the Park. Her father came
soon and Terence was introduced to him too.

After that Terence came often and Kathleen
seldom met him in the Park, though they still

The Iron Crucifix 263

walked there sometimes. Mrs. O'Brien and
John were immensely pleased with him. It was
the strangest thing to see how much he liked to
be in a house, just because it was a house, and
how wonderful the ways of people who lived in a
house seemed to him. When he and Kathleen
sat together in a corner of the room and John
sat reading a paper and Mrs. O'Brien knitting
and reading a book at the same time, it was as
astonishing a sight to him as it would be to you
to see a dozen mermaids playing at the bottom
of the sea.

''Isn't it beautiful?" he whispered to Kath-
leen.

"Isn't what beautiful?" Kathleen asked.

'' The way you live here," Terence answered.
" All these years, you know, I have just come out
of the hill to go to school, and then I have gone
back again. I have seen the people outside, but
I never was in one of their houses before. And
don't you ever dance? "

" Why, of course we do," Kathleen said; " we
go to balls sometimes, and to parties where there
is dancing, and then "

'' But do you never dance here, where you
live?"

" Oh, yes, sometimes we do, but the rooms are
not large enough to do it very well, you know."

" I never thought before," said Terence, " of

264 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

people's not dancing all the time that they were
not at work or eating or sleeping. You know
there in the hill they dance a good deal of the
time, and I get so tired of it that it seems to me
as if they danced all the time. I think it is de-
lightful not to dance. And what is your grand-
mother doing? Is she studying? "

" Why, no, she is only reading."

" But what does she read, if she is not study-
ing?"

" Why, I don't know; a story, maybe, or his-
tory, or poetry, or a sermon, or — it might be
anything."

" Will you tell me about all those things some
time?" Terence asked. ''I have heard people
tell stories, but I never read a story, and I never
read anything except books to help me learn to
make railways and telegraphs, so as to teach it
to the people in the hill. That is all they think
of when they are not dancing."

And Terence wondered like this at everything
that he saw, and he often told Kathleen how tired
he was of living in the hill and how much he
wished that he could live outside among the real
people, as he called them, instead of with the
Good People. Once Kathleen tried to take Ter-
ence to see Peter and Ellen, and then a strange
thing was discovered. Terence could not go
there. When he came to the corner of the street

The Iron Crucifix 265

where Peter and Ellen lived, he turned straight
around and walked the other way. " This is the
way," Kathleen called, and she hurried back after
him.

When she came up with him he turned again
and walked with her as they had been going at
first. '' I don't know why I did that," he said.
'' I didn't mean to. It was as if my feet turned
me around and brought me back."

By this time they were at the corner again, and
Terence did just the same thing over. He
turned square around and walked back. He
could not help it. He tried it again and again
and he could not turn that corner. If you had
been there and had seen him trying it, you would
have thought that it was the funniest sight that
you ever saw, though it may not sound so funny
to tell about it. Kathleen was vexed that Ter-
ence could not go where she wanted him to, but
she laughed till she had to sit down on a door-
step and rest.

Terence did not understand it any more than
Kathleen did, and afterward he tried it again,
but it was of no use. He begged her not to tell
her father or her grandmother, because, he said,
it would make him look so ridiculous. But one
day, when he and Kathleen were on their way
together to the O'Briens' house, as he came to
the last corner, Terence turned around and

266 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

walked away. " I can't go home with you to-
day," he said. ^' I don't know why it is. I
can't walk that way. It is just the same as when
I try to go to the Sullivans'."

He went back to the Park and Kathleen went
home alone and found that Peter and Ellen were
there. Then she simply could not keep herself
from telling her grandmother all about it.
Afterward she wished that she had not told her,
for her grandmother laughed a little and nodded
and looked as if she knew everything, and she
would tell nothing.

So the Hill Terence came to the O'Briens' so
often that he felt quite at home, and everyone
there was glad to have him come, and if he stayed
away for as long as three or four days, they won-
dered what had become of him. And all this,
you may suppose, did not improve Terence Sul-
livan's temper. He and the Hill Terence never
met except that one time in the Park, but he
knew all about it. And he talked with Kath-
leen about it sometimes, too, and it made her very
uncomfortable. He talked in the same way
that he did the day after Kathleen came back
from the hill, of his having something to do with
the Hill Terence and of the harm that he could
do if he chose. He never said anything that
Kathleen could understand, but he always made
her afraid. She told the Hill Terence about it.

The Iron Crucifix 267

and she told her grandmother about it. Her
grandmother seemed to understand it perfectly,
and she told her not to be afraid. Terence did
not seem to understand it at all, and he told her
not to be afraid.

Then one day, when Terence Sullivan had
been talking to her in the same way and had
been looking at her in a more terrible way than
ever before, she told her grandmother that she
could not bear it any longer. If something
could not be done to make Terence stop talking
to her so, and looking at her so, she should ask
her father to let her go away somewhere.

'' There's nothing for you to be afraid of," her
grandmother said, '' but if you are afraid and if it
troubles you so much, we will see what we can
do."

Then Mrs. O'Brien went to her own room and
came back with something which she gave to
Kathleen. It was a little crucifix, made of iron.
'' It was this," she said, '' that I touched you with
to bring you out of the circle when you were
dancing with the Good People. Hang it around
your neck, and if Terence troubles you, hold it up
before you and before him. I have always said
that Terence was one of the Good People, and I
never believed it more than this minute. If he
is one of them, he cannot come near the cross,
and the iron will be a terror to him too. If he

268 Fairies and Folk of Irela^id

tries to come too near to you, touch him with it,
and then we'll see."

" Why can he not come near the cross? "
Kathleen asked.

"Because," Mrs. O'Brien said, "the Good
People are a kind of spirits, and no spirits can
do you any harm if you hold the cross before
you, or if you make the sign of the cross. Did
I never tell you what the Good People were?
They were angels and lived in Heaven once.
When Satan and his angels rebelled against God
and w^ere driven out of Heaven, the angels that
are the Good People were driven out too. They
were not good enough to stay in Heaven, and
they were not bad enough to fall as Satan and his
angels fell, so some of them stayed on the land
and some of them stayed in the sea. And so
they will live till the Day of Judgment, and
then, some say, they will vanish like dew when
it dries away; and some say that they will be
saved like the souls of Christians. But we do
not know."

" You do not know," Kathleen repeated, " if
the Good People will be saved or not? They
were very good to me, though they kept me
away from home so long, and I should like to
believe "

" I have read of one of them," Mrs. O'Brien
went on, " who looked in at the gate of Heaven,

The Iron Crucifix 269

and an angel told him that he could come in, if
he could bring with him the thing which was
counted in Heaven the most precious in all the
world. And he found it and brought it and went
into Heaven. But for the most of them — the
Good People themselves do not know whether
they are to be saved, and we common people do
not know, but they say that priests know. And
sometimes the Good People themselves have
tried to find out from them.

" There was a troupe of fairies dancing one
night on a green near a river, and they were all
having the merry kind of time that you know
better than I do, Kathleen. But they stopped
all at once and ran to hide themselves among the
grass and behind leaves and weeds. For they
knew, in the way that they have of knowing, that
a priest was coming, and the Good People can-
not bear to be near a priest.

" The priest who was coming had been on
some errand at a long distance from home, and
he was a long way from home still. Indeed, he
was just making up his mind that, as it was so
late, he would not try to go home at all that night,
but would ask for a supper and a bed at the first
cabin he should come to. And well he knew he
would find it and welcome.

" And true for him, close by where the Good
People had been dancing, he came to a cabin and

270 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

knocked at the door. The man and his wife who
lived there were proud enough to see the priest
in their house and to give him all that he asked,
and the trouble that was on them was that they
had no more to give. For there was nothing to
offer him but potatoes, though they were as
good potatoes as there were in Ireland.

'' It was only a little while ago that the man
of the house had set a net in the river, and he
thought that there would hardly be a fish in it so
soon. But then he thought that there could be
no harm in looking, so down to the river he went
to try could he find something for the priest's
supper more than the potatoes. And true
enough, there in the net was the finest salmon
he ever saw. He was about to take him out,
when the net was pulled away from him by some-
thing that he could not see, and away went the
salmon swimming down the river.

" It may be that he said things to the fish that
I wouldn't like to be saying after him, and at the
same time he looked around to see what it was
that was pulling his net. And then he saw the
Good People.

" ' Give yourself no trouble about the fish/ one
of them said to him. * If you'll only go back to
your house and ask the priest one question from
us we'll see that he and you have the finest supper
that was ever seen.'

I he Iron Crucifix 271

" Now the man thought that it was not safe
to be talking and making bargains with the
Good People, so he said : ' I'll not have anything
to do with you at all.' And then he thought
neither was it safe to make them angry with him,
and so he said again : ' I've no wish to ofifend you
and I thank you for your ofYer, but I can't take it
from you, and I don't think his Reverence would
like me to do that same.'

" Then the one that had spoken first said :
' We'll not ask you to take anything you don't
want, but will you ask the priest one question
for us?"

" ' I see no harm in that,' said he, ' for sure he
needn't answer it if he doesn't like; but I'll not
take your supper.'

" ' Then,' said the little man, ' ask him if we
are to be saved at the Day of Judgment, like
the souls of Christians, and bring us back word
what he says, and we'll be grateful to you for-
ever.'

" He went back to his cabin and found his wife
and the priest sitting down to supper. ' Your
Reverence,' said he, ' might I ask you one ques-
tion?'

'' 'And what might that be? ' said the priest.

'' ' Will you tell me,' said he, ' will the Good
People be saved at the Day of Judgment, the
same as Christians?'

272 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" ' You never thought of asking that yourself,'
the priest said; * who told you to ask it? '

" ' It was the Good People themselves,' said
the man, * and they are down there by the river,
waiting for me to tell them what you answer
to it.'

" ' Go and tell them, then,' said the priest,
* that if they will come here and ask me that or
any other question themselves, I will answer
them.'

*' So he went back and told them what the
priest said, and the instant they heard it they all
flew away over the grass and up into the air and
vanished. Then he went back to eat his pota-
toes with the priest, still feeling sorry that he had
lost the salmon."

" But still I don't see," Kathleen said. " You
say that the cross will help me against Terence
if he is one of the Good People, because they
are a kind of spirits. But why wouldn't it
help me against him just as much if he wasn't
one of the Good People — if he was just a bad
man?"

"No, no," said the old woman; ''that little
bit of iron will keep you against any evil spirit,
and never one of them dare come near it; but no
poor human creature with a soul to save, no mat-
ter how wicked, was ever turned away from the
blessed cross, or ever will be. The cross was

The Iron Crucifix 273

made for them. And now, dear, you have been
crying and your eyes are all red. Go to your
room and try to make them look better. There
might be someone to see you before long,
and you wouldn't like your eyes to look that
way."

Someone did come to see Kathleen before
long, but, as it happened, neither she nor her
grandmother stayed to see him.

Kathleen scarcely knew that she had been cry-
ing till her grandmother told her, but she had.
She went to her room and looked in the glass and
was surprised to see how red her eyes were.
And just at the same instant she saw the little
gold box of green ointment, just under the glass,
where she had left it, and where it had been ever
since that night when she came back from the
hill. Then she remembered how the Fairy Queen
had given it to her to put on the little Prince's
eyes, and how she had done it, and how bright
his eyes looked when she touched them with the
ointment. She wondered if it w^ould make her
eyes look bright, too, and take the marks of the
tears away from them. She took a tiny bit of
the ointment on her finger and just touched each
eye with it. It did make them look brighter;
there w^as no doubt about it.

The next instant Kathleen started away from
the mirror and across the room with a little

274 Faii'ies and Folk of Ireland

frightened gasp. For, looking in the glass, she
had seen a dark form pass behind her, as if it
had just come in at the door of the room. She
knew who it was without turning around. It
was Terence Sullivan. He was still close to the
door now, and she was across the room. She
had the little iron crucifix in her hand and she
turned and faced him.

" What are you doing here? " she said.

Terence only stared at her, for an instant, more
surprised than she was herself. Then he stam-
mered : '' What — what am I "

" What are you here for? " said Kathleen.
" Why do you follow me like this? I won't let
you. Go away."

Terence was a little more himself now.
"Which eye do you see me with?" he
cried.

*' With both eyes, of course," said Kathleen.

" This for both of them, then ! " Terence
cried, and he struck at Kathleen's eyes with
his fist.

She raised her hand quickly to ward off the
blow, and Terence's hand touched the iron cruci-
fix. The blow did not reach her eyes. Terence
started back from her and fell upon the floor.
Only for an instant Kathleen saw his face. His
eyes blazed, but the rest of it was as if he had
been dead. Somehow he found his way out of

The Iron Crucifix 275

the room, Kathleen could scarcely see how. He
did not rise, but he seemed to run like a beast
running for its life. Kathleen followed him out
of the room and to the stairs. She saw him just
leaving the house by the door. And yet she
could not see how he went, for the door was
shut.

Kathleen ran downstairs to find her grand-
mother and to tell her what had happened. Mrs.
O'Brien listened and then she said : " Kathleen,
you have been thinking too much about Terence
and you have got too nervous. Nobody has
come into the house since you left me, only a few
minutes ago."

'' But I saw him, grandmother," Kathleen an-
swered, "" and it was all just as I told you. How
could I see him if he did not come? "

Mrs. O'Brien sat and thought for a few min-
utes. *' What did you do before you saw Ter-
ence? " she asked.

Kathleen thought for a minute, too, for she was
so much excited that she could scarcely remem-
ber. " I had been crying," she said, " as you
told me, and I put some of the ointment in the
little gold box on my eyes to see if it would make
them look better."

"It was that," said Mrs. O'Brien. "I've
heard the like of it before. When you have
touched your eyes with that ointment you can

276 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

always see the Good People, whether they want
you to or not. That was why he tried to strike
your eyes, and if he had struck them he would
have put them out. You will always see the
Good People now wherever you meet them.
They don't like to be seen except when they
choose, and so they may try to do you harm, and
you must be careful. Keep the Httle cross al-
ways by you.

'* And now come with me," the old woman
went on. " I have had enough of this, and I will
have no more."

" Come with you where, grandmother? "
Kathleen asked.

" To the Sullivans," the old woman answered.

It was only a little while after they had gone
when the Hill Terence came to the door. ** Mrs.
O'Brien and Miss Kathleen have gone to the
Sullivans'," the servant told him.

" Will they be back soon? " he asked.

"I don't think so," the servant said; ''it
was only a few minutes ago that they went
away."

*' I will go to the Sullivans' and find them,"
Terence said.

Now that, you know, was about the most
remarkable thing that Terence could say. He
had tried to go to the Sullivans' so many times

The Iron Crucifix 277

and had found so many times that his feet simply
would not take him there, that he had given up
trying long ago. But now he resolved that he
would go, and, more than that, he had a feel-
ing such as he had never had before that he
must go.

He knew the street and the number, though he
had never been there. He started ofif as if there
could not be the slightest doubt of his going
wherever he wished to go. He walked quickly
through the Park and past the little pool as if he
had never seen the place. He came out of the
Park at the other side and went on till he came
to the corner which he could never turn before.
He turned it as if it had been any other corner.
It did not even surprise him to find that he could.
He thought that he was doing all this just be-
cause he was so determined to go just where he
chose, but he had never felt anything like the
force or the determination or whatever it was
which was drawing him straight on.

He reached the house and went up the steps.
The door was open, and, instead of ringing, he
went straight in. But what he did next was the
strangest of all. He could not have told you
why he did it any more than he could have told
you why he did anything else. Instead of
knocking at the door or going into any room
that he passed, he went downstairs to the door

278 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

of the kitchen. There, just for one instant, he
stopped — the first instant that he had stopped
since he left the O'Briens' house. Then, still
without knocking, he pushed the door open and
went in.

XI

THE OLD KING COMES BACK

When Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen left home
they walked through the Park and to the Sul-
livans'. Peter was away. Terence half sat and
half lay on the floor in a corner. He held his
right hand behind him and covered his face with
his left arm. His whole body shook as if he were
riding in a cart over a rough road. Ellen sat
close to him, trying to soothe him and trying to
get him to tell her what was the matter.

When Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen came in
Terence seemed to try to make himself smaller,
but he did nothing else. " Ellen," said Mrs.
O'Brien, " come outside the room here for a
moment; I have something to tell you."

" Look at Terence there," Ellen answered;
" how can I leave him when he's that way? "

" Leave him," said Mrs. O'Brien, " and come
out here with me."

279

28o Fairies and Folk of Ireland

She took Ellen by the hand and led her, and
Ellen followed. There was something in Mrs.
O'Brien's look now that told her she would have
to come. '' Now look at me," said Mrs. O'Brien,
when they w^ere out of the room; '' do I look
as if I would mean every word I said, or do
I not?"

Ellen did not answer, and Mrs. O'Brien said:
" Ellen, when it was only your own affair I told
you what you ought to do, but I let you take
your own way. But now it is Kathleen's affair
and John's and mine, and it is time that I had
my way. Look at me, Ellen, and tell me, do I
look as if I meant to have it? "

Again Ellen looked in the old woman's face
and said nothing for an instant. Then she
looked down again in a confused w^ay, and said:
'' I must go back to Terence."

" Ellen," said the old woman, " go down to
the kitchen. We'll follow you, and Terence can
come, too, if he likes, and I think he will."

Without a word Ellen went down the stairs.
Mrs. O'Brien called to Terence : " We are
going to the kitchen; you can come if you
like."

Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen followed Ellen,
and Terence followed them. He slipped down
the stairs like a bundle of rags. He stole into
the kitchen after the others and half sat and half

The Old King Comes Back 281

lay in the corner, as he had done in the room
above, only he did not cover his face with his
arm, but kept his eyes on Mrs. O'Brien to see
what she w^as going to do.

'' Now, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien whispered, " put
your largest pot on the fire, put water in it, and
let it boil."

Ellen looked at the old w^oman as if she were
begging her not to do this. The old woman
looked back at her, and then she did it. She
put the pot on the fire and the water in the pot.
'' Now bring all the eggs you have in the house,"
Mrs. O'Brien said.

Ellen was past asking questions now, and she
brought the eggs. It always takes a long time
for w^ater to boil, and it seemed to all of them as
if it took hours for this water to boil. While
they were waiting not one of them spoke and
they scarcely moved. Terence was all but hold-
ing his breath, and his eyes, red and staring,
wxre now upon Mrs. O'Brien and now upon
Ellen, and never at rest. Kathleen looked at
Terence and clutched the little crucifix in her
hand. But she need not have been afraid of
Terence; he knew the crucifix as well as he
cared to know it.

After a long time the water boiled. Mrs.
O'Brien waited till it w^as boihng as hard as
ever it could, and then she whispered to Ellen:

282 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" Break the eggs now; keep the shells and throw
away the rest."

Poor Ellen could not guess what it all meant,
but she broke the eggs, laid the shells carefully
aside, and threw away the rest.

" Now," said Mrs. O'Brien, " put the shells
in the pot."

Ellen did as she was told.

'' What are you doing, mother? " Terence
called from his corner.

" Tell him you are brewing," Mrs. O'Brien
whispered.

" I'm brewing, Terence," said Ellen, scarcely
loud enough to be heard.

" And what are you brewing? " Terence asked
again.

'' Say egg-shells," Mrs. O'Brien whispered.

" Egg-shells, Terence," Ellen said.

Terence sprang to his feet. " Egg-shells ! "
he cried. " For near six thousand years I have
lived on this earth, and never till this minute did
I see anybody brew egg-shells ! "

Mrs. O'Brien had turned upon him before he
had done speaking. " Six thousand years, is it,
that you've been on this earth? " she cried.
" Then go and spend the rest of the years where
you spent the six thousand ! You've been long
enough here ! And send back the child that was
stolen when you came here ! "

The Old King Comes Back 283

Terence sprang toward a window. Ellen
stood in his way; he struck her in the face with
his open hand and threw her on the floor. After
that nobody saw him but Kathleen. She saw
him go toward the window. It was open just
a little crack. Before her very eyes he grew
smaller and smaller, till he scrambled and
rolled and slipped through the crack and was
gone.

That very instant the door opened and the
Hill Terence came in. He saw Ellen lying on
the floor, and, without noticing anyone else, he
went to her and lifted her up. Ellen looked in
his face, started back from him for an instant, still
gazing in his face, and then caught him in her
arms and cried, with her voice all full of tears,
" It's my own boy — my own boy — the one I al-
ways saw in my dreams ! Don't come near me,
any of you, or you'll wake me and it'll be another
dream! Oh, let me keep this dream while I
can!"

" You'll keep this dream always, Ellen, dear,"
the old woman said. " Have no more fear.
This is the dream that's for all your life and for-
ever."

It was about that time, or it may have been a
little later, that Peter came in. They told him
all about it as well as they could. " It's glad I
am that it all came out so," Peter said, after they

284 Fairies and Folk of Irela7id

had completely bewildered him by trying to
make him understand the story; '' it's glad I am.
And yet I did Hke to hear Terence play the
fiddle."

" I can play the fiddle a little too/' the new
Terence said.

" Oh, yes, indeed he can ! " said Kathleen.
*' Bring the fiddle and he will show you."

Peter brought the fiddle and Terence played,
and the fiddle sang a great song of gladness — the
song of a soul born to find itself a full man all at
once.

"Ah! don't you see now? Don't you see
now? " Kathleen cried. " That means some-
thing!"

The fairies in the hill were dancing their end-
less dance, when Naggeneen, as if he had been
lifted up in the air and dropped, was suddenly
among them. They stopped the dance and
gathered around him. " What for are you back
here? " the King asked.

" They drove me out ! " Naggeneen cried.
" I knew they would ! I told you they would !
I told you you could do nothing and I could do
nothing! It's the only wonder that they didn't
drive me out long ago."

" What do you keep your hand behind you
for? " the King asked.

The Old King Comes Back 285

"I couldn't tell you that," said Naggeneen;
" I couldn't say the words that I'ld have to say to
tell you."

" And how did they drive you out? "

" By brewing egg-shells."

" And do you mean," the King cried, " that
you let them catch you with that old trick? I
thought you was clever."

" Let them catch me ! I couldn't help what
they did! I tried to help it, but it's a spell
that's too strong for me or for any of us. If I
was to get a soul by it, I couldn't help saying:
' What are you doing, mother? ' and then I
couldn't help saying how long I had been on
the earth. Ah, didn't I always tell you mortals
was more powerful than us, if they only knew
how? What are our spells and our charms to
theirs? "

"And where is Terence, then?" the King
asked.

" He's not come in yet," somebody an-
swered.

" You know where he must be by this time,"
said Naggeneen. '' He's back with his father
and his mother by now. Where else could he
be?"

" There'll be no geometry to-night," the King
said. " It's all done; we've failed in that. We'll
always be as we are, as you told us, Nagge-

286 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

neen. So now be as you were yourself and
give us a tune to dance by. We was dancing
when you came in, but it was no good music
we had."

"I'll not play any more," Naggeneen said;
"that's all done too. But I have something
more to tell you. Kathleen O'Brien can see us,
whether we like it or not. Some fool of you
must have given her the ointment when she was
here, and now she has used it on her eyes. She
saw me when I meant to be invisible, and by the
same token she can see any of you any time,
whether you want to be seen or not. Now you
know it's the rule that she must be blinded in
some way. Any of you can do it that likes.
I've had enough and I warn you. She carries
something that none of you can face, if she uses
it. But you can watch your chance and do it
when she's asleep or in some way off her
guard."

An angry murmur ran around when Nagge-
neen said this. The King was about to speak,
but the Queen spoke first. " Never a one of
you shall harm her," she said. " Look what she
did for me and the little Prince, at that time when
we can do nothing for ourselves. And how
good her grandmother has always been to us;
and her mother, when she was alive. I don't
care if she sees everything we do; no one of us

The Old King Comes Back 287

shall ever harm her or anyone that belongs to
her."

" You are right/' the King said, " and it's
ordered as you say."

"And she's not to be blinded, then?" said
Naggeneen.

" She's not to be harmed," the King answered.
" I forbid you ever to touch her, Naggeneen, and
none of us ever v^ill."

" Don't fear for me," said Naggeneen. " I'll
never go near her. I've had enough."

'' And we've all had enough," said the King;
" so now, Naggeneen, play for us."

" Leave me be," said Naggeneen; " I'll never
play for you again. King, did you ever lose
what you cared for more than all the world?
When you do, you'll know more than you know
now, with all your age and with all your power.
I told you once how I carried off the Princess of
France and how Guleesh na Guss Dhu stole her
from me. I cared nothing for her. It was only
the soul that I'ld get from her that I wanted.
And this time it was only the soul that I wanted,
too, at first, but I loved this one in the end. But
a soul will always find out another soul, and
there's nothing for one like us, that has no soul.
Oh, I couldn't even tell her Hke a man. All I
could do was to be always frightening her and
threatening her, and I knew all the time that it

288 Fairies and Folk of h' eland

would drive her away from me at last, or me
away from her. And I'll be like the rest of
you till the Last Day, and then it's not even a
little smoke that there'll be left of us. Dance
and play and do what you like, but leave me
be."

Naggeneen turned away from the King,
pushed his way through the crowd, and threw
himself down in a corner of the hall, with his face
against the wall. The rest did not dance any
more that night. Naggeneen had frightened
them, as he always frightened them when he
chose.

After that for a time everything went with the
fairies as it had gone at first, except that Nagge-
neen was not among them. Sometimes he was
in the hall by himself and sometimes he was out
of it by himself, but he never danced with the
others, he never talked with them, and he never
played for them.

One day the King came to him as he sat in his
corner alone and said, '' Naggeneen, W'C are all
going to the wedding. Will you come with
us?"

'' Leave me be," said Naggeneen. " Why
would I want to see it? I don't know if I'll ever
go with you or do anything with you again, or
with anyone, but I know I'll not now."

The Old King Comes Back 289

All the people who were passing St. Patrick's
Cathedral could tell by the looks of things that
if they waited long enough they w^ould see some-
body come out. So a good many waited.
After a while they saw Terence and Kathleen
come out and get into a carriage.

" Look," said Kathleen; " do you see them?
They are the Good People ! Don't you see them
all around us, in the street and in the air, and
everywhere? I remember every one of them —
the funny little men and the pretty little girls.
Oh, you goose, you have lived with them all your
life, and still you can't see them except when they
want you to. But my eyes are different, and I
can see them always. Here is one of them com-
ing close to the carriage. It is the King. Yes,
Your Majesty. What do you think he says, Ter-
ence? He says that they are never going to try
to put my eyes out and are never going to do me
any harm at all, and that I am never to be afraid
of them."

Presently the people who wxre waiting outside
the Cathedral saw John O'Brien and his mother
come out and get into another carriage.
** Shaun," said the old woman, " I'm wishing
that poor Kitty — Heaven rest her soul! — could
be here to-day."

" I was thinking that same, mother," said
John.

290 Fairies and Folk of Ireland

" I think she sees it all," said his mother.

" I think so," said John.

" Shaun," said the old woman again, '' isn't it
all as well as it could be? Isn't my old King
back with us, and isn't it the luck of O'Donoghue
that we've found again? "

PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED CATA-
LOGUE OF BOOKS FOR YOUNG
PEOPLE SENT ON APPLICATION

New and Standard Books
for Young Readers

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers

A NEW BOOK BY PAUL DU CHAILLU

The World of the Great Forest

How Animals, Birds, Reptiles and Insects Talk, Think, Work

and Live. With over 50 illustrations by C. R. Knight and

J. H. Gleeson. Square i2mo, $2.00.

Undoubtedly the masterpiece of the well-known explorer, in which his

young friends mav read how his companions of the great African Forest

describe in their own language their characteristics, feelings, manner of

life, means of subsistence, etc., etc., as if they were actually endowed with

the gift of speech and had made him their confidant.

FORMER BOOKS BY MR. DU CHAILLU

The Land of the Long Night

With 24 full-page illustrations. Square i2mo, $2.00.

Ivar the Viking

A Romantic History, based upon Authentic Facts of the
Third and Fourth Centuries. i2mo, $1.50.

A NEW BOOK BY KIRK MUNROE

Brethren of the Coast

A Tale of West Indian Pirates. Illustrated by R. F. Zog-
baum. i2mo, $1.25.
The scene of this new storj' is laid in Cuba, in the early part of this century.
It is a stirring account of the adventures and experiences of a wealthy
planter's son with a band of pirates known as Brethren of the Coast.

OTHER BOOKS BY KIRK MUNROE

Midshipman Stuart

Or, the Last Cruise of the " Essex." A Tale of 1812.
Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25.

In Pirate ^A^aters

A Tale of the American Navy. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25.
WHITE CONQUEROR SERIES

^Vith Crockett and Bowie

Or, Fighting for the Lone Star Flag. A Tale of Texas.
Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25.

Through Swamp and Glade

A Tale of the Seminole War. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25.

At W^ar with Pontiac

Or, the Totem of the Bear. A Tale of Redcoat and Red-
skin. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25.

The White Conquerors

A Tale of Toltec and Aztec. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25.
The Set, 4 vols., in a box, SS-^<^-

A NEW BOOK BY W. H. FROST

Fairies and Folk of Ireland

Illustrated by S. R. Burleigh. i2mo, $1.50.

Mr. Frost here applies his attractive methods to re-telling for young
and old the fascinating myths and legends of Irish folk-lore. As in his
previous books, these fresh and delightful materials are incorporated in a
narrative setting hardly less interesting than themselves.

OTHER BOOKS BY MR. FROST

Each illustrated by S. R. Burleigh. i2mo, $1.50.

The Knights of the Round Table.

The Court of King Arthur. Stories from the Land of the
Round Table.

The "Wagner Story Book. Firelight Tales of the Great Music
Dramas.

A NEW BOOK BY DANIEL C. BEARD

The Jack of All Trades

Or, New Ideas for American Boys. Profusely illustrated
by the author. Square 8vo, $2.00.

No author possesses to such a de8:ree the ability to describe and make
interesting to boys all the various ingenious devices for amusement and
new games. Over 30,000 copies have been sold of his two previous books.

OTHER BOOKS BY MR. BEARD

The Outdoor Handy Book

For Playground, Field and Forest. New edition of " The
American Boy's Book of Sport." With more than 300
illustrations. Square 8vo, $2.00.

The American Boy's Handy Book

Or, What to Do and How to Do It. With more than 300
illustrations by the author. Square 8vo. $2.00.

BY LINA AND ADELIA B. BEARD

The American Girl's Handy Book

Or, How to Amuse Yourself and Others. With more than
300 illustrations by the authors. New and Enlarged
Edition. Square 8vo, $2.00.

BY ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON

The Trail of the Sandhill Stag

With 8 full-page illustrations (one in color), and numerous
marginal illustrations from drawings by the author.
Square 8vo, $1.50.

*** Japan Edition of the above, limited to 250 copies, bound in leather,
on hand-made paper. $6.00 net.

Wild Animals I Have Known

With 200 illustrations from dravirings by the author, ^ist
Thousand. Square i2mo, $2.00.

THREE NEW^ HENTY BOOKS

With Buller in Natal

Or, a Born Leader. Illustrated by W. Rainey, R.I. i2mo,
$1.50.

In the Irish Brigade

A Story of the Reign of Louis XIV. Illustrated. i2mo, $1. 50.

Out with Garibaldi

AStory of the Liberation of Italy. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.50.

PREVIOUS VOLUMES

Each, with numerous illustrations, handsomely bound, oliv-
ine edges, i2mo, $1.50.

Won by the Sword. A Story of
the Thirty Years' War.

A Roving Commission; Or,
Through the Black Insurrec-
tion AT Hayti.

No Surrender. A Tale of the Ris-
ing in La Vend€e.

Under Wellington's Command.
A Tale ofthe Peninsular War.

At Aboukir and Acre. A Story
of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt.

Both Sides the Border. A Tale
of Hotspur and Gleudower.

With Frederick the Great. A
Tale of the Seven Years' War.

A March on London. A Story of
Wat Tyler's Rising.

W^ith Moore at Corunna. AStory
ofthe Peninsular War.

Cochrane the Dauntless. A Tale
ofthe Exploits of Lord Cochrane
in South American Waters.

At Agincourt. A Tale of the
White Hoods of Paris.

On the Irrawaddy. A Story of the
First Burmese War.

Through Russian Snows. A

Story of Napoleon's Retreat from
Moscow.

A Knight of the White Cross.
A Tale ofthe Siege of Rhodes.

The Tiger of Mysore. A Story
of the War with Tippoo Said.

In the Heart of the Rockies. A

Story of Adventure in Colorado.

W^hen London Burned. A Story
of Restoration Times and the
Great Fire.

Wulf the Saxon. A Story of the
Norman Conquest.

St. Bartholomew's Eve. A Tale
ofthe Huguenot Wars.

Through the Sikh War. A Tale
ofthe Conquest ofthe Punjaub.

Charles Scribner's Sons

Publishers

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT

This book is under no circumstances to be
taken from the Building

JM f^4M9^

^Ar ^ - ^^''

^.AY i 5 m

ly-^yf

>

/-L V^- ^ g-

;v -/ \ ' '-

/-^^

i

tir?tH'i52^^'^«sit^Jt

liliiiil^

■^iii tiiiiiiii':-}'.} '.•'!• jti'-'itiitiiiiuyit'.